This 'Love' Business
by Threepwillow
Summary: As unlikely as their friendship was, it obviously wasn't always that close. And the sad, sad truth remains that one of them will always want it to be more. FREDXGENE, pre AND postseries?, upped rating. NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

_The first time I met Gene Starwind, I had just turned thirteen the day before._

The space vessel Excelsior VI docked into one of the galaxy's most luxurious hotel satellites, a small and semi-private place known as Red Rush. After all the proper procedures had been completed – pay arranged, at a steep price that the ship's owner had no problem covering, and maintenance orders dictated – the three most important passengers of Excelsior VI departed, stepping aboard the posh satellite station with a similar stately grace characterizing all of them. Ladies first dictated that the petite, well-dressed brunette with her glittering smile disembark first, clutching her designer handbag to her shoulder and gazing around at the décor. Following her was the owner of the ship, a towering man in a white business suit with odd, blue-violet hair that was cropped short to diminish his incurrent balding. He stepped off and clapped a broad hand to the woman's shoulder, shaking her a bit roughly but smiling nonetheless.

The third was a small, slender boy that only left the ship at his father's command of "Fred, _come_."

Exuding less of the polite manner than his parents, the boy walked stiffly from Excelsior VI's passenger hatch and into the high-class docking bay of Red Rush. His hair was cut short but shaggy, with longer strands around his ears, and had blended the tones of his mother and father almost perfectly to reach a deep, midnight blue. His build was less evenly mixed; for a boy on his thirteenth birthday, he was remarkably scrawny, as though he still had some definite growing to do, and his white suit that matched his father's hung in an uncomfortable-looking fashion on his slim form, like it had been tailor-made but for the wrong person. Even for all the mannerisms he adopted to please his parents in public, he couldn't resist at least one tug at his shirt collar as they made their way inside to the hotel room, scurrying along after his mother while his father spoke to the numerous other hotel patrons that stopped and begged for his attention.

Their room was on the eighteenth floor, and as soon as all three of them reached the relative privacy of the elevator, Fred let loose with the tirade he'd been composing in his head the entire flight over.

"_DA_ad, this is preposterous! I'm going to be the first child in my class this year who hasn't thrown a birthday party!"

"Fred – " his mother began.

"Ryo Norton's family let him turn eight of his friends loose to take _anything _they wanted out of their department store chain! Alicia Zeng took the _entire seventh grade_ to Planet Tenrei!"

"Listen here, Fred – "

"I'm turning thirteen, Dad! I'm becoming a teenager, for crying out loud! I can't believe I'm going to have to be with you and Mom on this useless _business trip_!"

"Frederick Anderson Luo!" his father barked, and he quickly shut his mouth. "We've been through this three times already! There is _no way _you are going to be a suitable business heir for me unless you accompany me on my economic ventures and observe family tradition and business policy. I would think, _Fred_, that _especially _as a thirteen-year-old, you would realize the importance of your education in this regard! You are growing closer and closer to becoming the next head of Luo Intergalactic Trades! Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Dad," Fred sighed dismally, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his slacks.

"The Luos haven't always had money. Your grandfather and your great-grandfather had to work hard to get us to where we are today."

"I know, Dad."

"Besides, I didn't see Ryo Norton inviting _you _to _his _party."

Silence permeated the elevator for about two seconds more until it reached the eighteenth storey with a mechanical _ding_. The Luo family stepped off and Fred's father led the way to their suite, number 1804, at the end of the hallway to their left. Fred scuffed his feet against the thick beige carpeting, slightly amused by how deeply into it his shoes sank, but already feeling the first twinge of the insufferable boredom that overcame him whenever he was dragged along on his father's business endeavors.

His mother leaned down to whisper in his ear as his father was swiping the key-card and unlocking their rooms. "You know he only means well, sweetie."

"I know, I know," Fred replied, sighing. "Sometimes I just want to be normal, though."

"Normal – like everyone else?" She gave Fred a teasing smirk, half a mockery of shock, and he laughed a little.

"No, no, that's silly. Not _poor _normal. Just normal for us."

---

_I had merely glimpsed him the night before, but that did make him easier to find._

The grand business meeting that Mr. Luo was attending had been marked on the schedule for the following afternoon. This would be the experience Fred had to sit through in the name of "the family business." Until then, Mr. Luo was mingling with the hotel's other patrons, socializing and brownnosing and in general jumping through corporate hoops. His wife trailed along after him for appearance's sake, joining in the circle of rich ladies that only went to those sorts of things to keep each other company, but she did sneak him in a slice of a decadent red velvet cake as an apology for their absence. Fred picked at it halfheartedly, staring out the window of his room in the suite to the artificial climate of the station's "outside" – though really, there wasn't much to see, for the station was filled with conference centers and high-rise hotels for the well-to-do. There were even a couple more reasonably priced places to stay for those who might dare to grub for jobs in such an upper-crust place, and Fred had the misfortune of staring straight at one of these drab-looking developments as he chewed at his cake (which hadn't even had a candle in it, for crying out loud).

As he lifted the first real bite to his mouth, figuring that he might as well eat the cake and get it over with rather than feel sorry for himself, something of a remarkably similar color appeared in the window directly across from his. Upon swallowing and inspecting closer, Fred determined it to be the hair of a boy, close to his age from the looks of it, leaning against his window as well. Though he felt oddly like he was spying, Fred scooted closer to the window of his own room to get a better look.

The most Fred could see of the other boy was his deep red hair, tanned skin, and wide blue-black eyes. Rather than the astonishing boredom that usually came to Fred in places such as Red Rush, the boy across the way wore an expression of intense excitement, peering out the window as though he was attempting to take it all in at once and failing. As Fred watched, a brown-haired man with a similar complexion and smile came to the window and ruffled the other boy's hair; Fred assumed this man was his father. They swapped a few words and then left the window, curtains swishing back into place.

As they turned, however, the red-haired boy looked up at Fred's hotel rather than down into the sidewalks and details of the ground level. Fred gasped as they made eye contact.

_Well, _he thought, _it could almost be interesting with someone else my own age_.

Fred vowed to seek the other boy out the following morning.

---

_For all my professions of disbelief in love at first sight, I'm almost afraid that it happened_.

When Fred awoke the next morning, his mother and father were still in bed and his suitcase was still in the suite's common room. Tiptoeing past his father's side of the bed to get at his clothes, he could smell a faint whiff of alcohol, but he had no reason to believe it was anything more than social boozing. His father just socially boozed a _lot_.

He flat-out refused to crawl back into a coat and tie until it was absolutely necessary. Instead, he jerked on a light-green polo shirt with a stripe of darker green down the right breast and a pair of nicely-cut dark-gray slacks – the closest to casual he could muster – and combed his unruly hair as best he could before scribbling some note to his parents about revisiting the candy shop they had been to last time and slipping one of the suite's key-cards into his wallet next to his cash card. He'd slept awfully late in relation to the station's time-synch – lag from their space flight, of course – and so it didn't seem at all unusual for a boy his age to be darting around the station, outside of the fact that boys his age weren't usually around for anything other than janitorial staff.

Rather than head to the store he had mentioned, however, Fred crossed the broad walkway to the cheaper hotel and peered straight up at its glassy face. Did he dare go in? How would he find the red-haired boy if he did? He supposed it was still the eighteenth floor no matter how he cut it – but how would he be received, if the other boy were there?

Oh well. Fred had never been the type to fuss over first impressions; he usually made good ones. He'd just have to hope for the best.

Fortunately for Fred, the hotel lobby was nearly devoid of other people, and no one really noticed his entrance. It was a nice place, Fred allowed, but it was hardly his own hotel; the carpet wasn't nearly as thick, the works of art hanging from the walls were _clearly _reproductions, and the elevator indicated that there were only twenty storeys rather than forty-five. Still, had he been guaranteed prompt room service with an excellent menu, he reckoned this place would have served the purpose just as well as any.

He didn't share his elevator ride with anyone; apparently, no one was particularly interested in journeying _to _the eighteenth floor in the middle of the day. Floor eighteen had eleven rooms, only five of which were on the wall facing his hotel, and by process of elimination he ruled out three of them as not lining up properly. Knocking on one of the remaining two earned him no response: the room was either entirely unoccupied or its inhabitants were out somewhere.

Knocking on the second door brought him a rude and decidedly teenaged "Do not disturb!"

Fred drew a deep breath. "Hello. You wouldn't happen to be the red-haired guy I saw from my room across the way last night, would you?" He didn't really see how any other response would have worked, so the direct approach was pretty much his only route.

And it was evidently a successful one. In a few brief seconds more, the door to room 1809 was swinging open to reveal the redhead, standing a good two and a half inches taller than Fred and with a hand-held game system dangling from his fingers. "Who're you?" he asked.

"I'm Fred Luo, and I'm insufferably _bored_," Fred answered frankly. "I was wondering if you were losing it stuck here as much as I was. I don't…well, there are never any other _kids _here when I'm here, so I thought – "

"I ain't a kid," the redhead shot back, turning to retreat into his room and sliding the door shut as he went. Fred quickly jammed the toe of his white boots into the crack of the door and forced his hand and half his face inside.

"I didn't mean it like that, honest, I just meant someone else close to my own age. Unless you're much older or younger than you look, I'd venture to say we've at least got that much in common. Come now, humor me, let me at least talk _at _you for a couple of minutes. This'll be the most decent human contact I get all day."

The redhead raised one thick eyebrow and relented, allowing Fred to squeeze his way into the room completely. "You here by yourself or somethin'?"

"No, of course not. It's just that my father is dragging me along on this wretched business trip of his, so all the people I see for the rest of today will _really _be bloodsucking leeches in disguise." Watching as the other boy flopped belly-first onto the bed that took up most of the room, Fred decided it was okay to seat himself, and landed similarly in the large armchair by the window, where the redhead had presumably been sitting the night before. "It's all right though, I guess. I ought to be used to it by now, you'd think." Below the sound of his own voice, Fred could hear the faint beep-click of the game being played again. "Are you even paying attention to a thing I've said?"

"Shut up real quick, will ya? I'm trying to beat this boss I've been workin' at since we got here. It's really freakin' hard."

"My father won't let me play video games," Fred answered. "He says they rot the brain."

A tune of digital defeat emanated from the game and the red-haired boy smacked it down into the mattress and groaned. "Gee whiz, Fred, that was my last life! What the hell are you doing, anyway?"

"I'm _trying_," Fred said finally, "to make a friend. I've been told I'm not very good at it, so you'll have to help me out a bit."

"Yeah, I'd say you kind of suck." The other boy sat up and looked Fred in the eye. "For one, you sound like a stuck-up rich bastard, but I guess I can forgive that a little because you probably are. Two, you never freakin' _shut up_, so it's really hard for anyone else to get a word in edgewise. And three – " Here he got up off the bed, trudged over to where Fred was sitting, and took a small lump of Fred's messy hair in his hand, giving it a rougher-than-necessary tug. "Three, your hair is all in your face and I can't even see you to talk to you when I _can_ talk. Get yourself a freakin' headband, or shave yourself bald, or something."

"_Bald_? What a preposterous suggestion – " Fred stopped. The other boy hadn't even offered up his name yet.

He seemed to realize that, though, and answered reluctantly. "Gene. Starwind." A video-game calloused hand was extended, practically thrust in Fred's face, and he took it gingerly, returning the gesture more vigorously when Gene was found to have a reasonably good handshake. Gene sank down onto the corner of the bed. "Friends, huh?"

"If you wouldn't at all mind."

"So whaddya do for fun on Red Rush?"

"Well, down where the shops are, they've got this place that sells remarkably good chocolate."

Gene's expression perked up a little. "You've bought stuff from there? We walked past it and it smelled _so _good, but the prices were insane."

A smirk played across Fred's face, and he reached into his back pocket to tug out his wallet. "It's _hardly _a problem, Gene." Hoisting himself up using the arms of the chair, Fred stood, and as Gene followed suit he began to lead the way to the door. "Let's go now – I told my parents I'd be there anyway, and they have the best chocolate-covered cherries I've ever found anywhere."

---

_Even then, the first time I ever said his name, the lilt was creeping slowly into my voice._

_----------_

**AN:** Forgive me Father, for I have sinned, I don't even know if I've ever confessed before, but…I'm writing a chaptered fic. Oh, help me now.

Butbutbut…Frene is so cute…and I was thinking today (while watching episodes 10-19 of Outlaw Star) how we never really find out how Fred met Gene…andandand…lookat'em…kyaa. So yes, this may get updated about once a millennium, but DEAL WITH IT. That is all.


	2. Chapter 2

_The first time I met Fred Luo, we were both about fourteen or so._

Gene followed closely behind Fred as they plowed through the narrow walkways and overpasses that made up the "ground" level of Red Rush Station. The boy was certainly an enigma, especially considering they had only met about twenty minutes ago, and as annoying as he was, Gene couldn't help but start to like him. He shared in the smaller boy's aggravation at the lack of company their own age, and while he had been content to just sit and poke at his video game, the little excursion was going to be a pleasant change of pace. It helped that he was getting free candy out of the whole deal. Really, how often did a rich stranger just show up at your door and offer to buy you things you couldn't afford in a year, just out of _boredom_?

As they walked, Gene's eyes alternated between his left and his right, staring in awe at all the huge buildings and other expensive things that surrounded the two of them. Though he and his father had passed through Red Rush once or twice before, it had never been for an overnight stay; they were usually too short on money for something like that. Real green plants sprouted up from pots at the front of almost every building. Massive hotels and conference centers stretched up almost to the domed barrier protecting the station from the vacuum of space. An old lady passed them by walking a dog, and even the ugly terrier's collar was encrusted in more jewels than Gene had ever seen before.

It was almost embarrassing to be seen with Fred, who sashayed nonchalantly down the walk with his eyes straight ahead. "God, I hate this place."

Gene scowled. "You got no reason to. The only reason someone would hate this place is if they couldn't afford anything." He paused for emphasis as they rounded a corner. "_I _hate this place."

"It's so oppressive!" Fred insisted, throwing up his right hand casually. "We're out here in the middle of _nowhere_, surrounded by giant swirling balls of gas and trapped inside a little puny bubble filled with artificial air. Explain to me what's so interesting about it."

"Is that really what you think about space?" Gene demanded. He couldn't believe it. "Space is full of possibilities. Hell, I can't even imagine fifteen hundred years ago when everyone was stuck on _one _planet. There must not have been any jobs or even space to move."

"That's why they call it survival of the fittest," Fred said. "Back in those days, everyone was also healthier. With all of these new space-diseases, mental disorders caused by the giant blackness, et cetera, the life expectancy is decreasing and more people are _choosing _to stay on the ground, regardless of the crowding."

Gene shook his head adamantly. "Space is freedom. It's the final frontier."

"Well, you'll have your opinion and I'll have mine," Fred said with a sigh, turning to walk backward, face to face with Gene. "I'd rather be planet-side any day. The air tastes better. Now come on, we're almost there."

Sure enough, the sweets shop loomed up in front of them, glass windows allowing pleasing glimpses of iced fruits, fanciful chocolate creations, and C'tarl sugarfish. Making a mental note to avoid that last one, Gene followed Fred in, blue-black eyes wide and whirling as he tried to look at everything at once.

"Why, Master Luo, I was wondering how long it would take to receive another visit from you." The shopkeeper addressed Fred with a smile and he replied with a fake one, but Gene was not paying attention to their conversation. Slowly, for fear of breaking something, the redhead strode around the room, weaving in between glass display cases and picking out all the things he would eat if he someday won a huge sweepstakes and had wong out the ears, or something. There were chocolates of every shape, size, and variety, including some crafted into the shapes of specific animals or space vessels. There was a giant orb of blown sugar with a ribbon of toffee suspended around it to simulate some ringed planet, Saturn was his guess.

Along the entirety of one wall there were bottles labeled "Zeniff," which was apparently an expensive designer soft drink. The flavors ranged from apple-berry to yellow butterwhiskey, and each came in an artfully carved crystal bottle. A six-pack of any one flavor was eight hundred wong; for customized combinations, it cost extra by the number of different flavors. Though the prices were outrageous, Gene's gaze kept gravitating to the citrus-cola flavor. It was a striking shade of green and sounded very appealing.

At the center of the room, a delicately, beautifully crafted red rose sat in a domed case all to itself; the label said it was constructed out of pure caramelized plant matter and could actually still perform photosynthesis, though not enough to allow the flower to grow. It cost an insane amount of money, and Gene gave a long, low whistle. Who came up with this stuff?

He fell back into Fred's conversation just soon enough to hear the clerk ask, "So who's your little friend?"

"His name is Gene. We just met each other, actually, but he was quick to take me up on the offer of some of your chocolate-covered cherries." His gaze left the woman to look Gene sidelong in the eye. Gene scowled back.

"Oh, anything for you, sir," she said, and at once she was darting into the back room to procure an ornately patterned cardboard box with a red ribbon tied around its center.

"Gee, way to make me sound like an ingrate," Gene muttered.

"Well, in my defense, you haven't once said 'thank you.'"

Gene affected the shopkeeper's voice, quite well in fact. "Oh, thank you, Master Fred, for treating me to some overly priced chocolate just to entertain yourself."

"Oh, don't be like that. I was only joking."

"Relax, relax, Fred. So was I."

"You know the price!" the woman reminded him as she bustled back in, and Gene was once again inclined to stare in wonder as the register rang up five hundred wong and Fred casually swiped his card through the indicated slot. "Well, I hope you come back soon."

"Don't count on it; you know my father's schedule."

"Oh, true, true."

Fred walked briskly past Gene, bumping into him a little and startling him out of his reverie. He jumped a bit and blinked once or twice before following Fred out of the shop, across the way to a small park with benches convenient for eating chocolate.

"That woman is so nosy," Fred said as soon as they had sat down, snapping the ribbon off the box and opening it to reveal ten of the promised sweets. "At least she likes me enough to give me a discount."

Gene gawped. "You mean those things usually cost _more _money?"

"Well, they've got to get the cherries imported, you know? A box of ten is usually six-fifty." He lifted one from the packaging and popped it into his mouth, a pleased smirk drifting lazily across his face as the flavor was released. "My dad thinks it's too decadent to spend that much on chocolate, but I have a weakness for cherries." He flashed Gene a wink.

"This must be some damn good candy," was all Gene could come up with. He reached nervously into the box and pulled one out, slipping it between his lips slowly, making sure he didn't lose any of the taste.

"Oh for heaven's sakes, it isn't poisonous!" Fred laughed.

"I just want to be careful."

Fred gave him a look that Gene wasn't sure he liked. "What are you doing here, exactly?"

Gene looked down at the ground, unsure of how to answer the question without making himself seem like a ridiculous poor person. "Well, it's the same sorta thing as you, right? We're here with our dads, about work."

"I…_guess _so…" Fred allowed.

Gene continued. "My dad's a transporter. His ship's really well insured and also really durable; it can take just about any kinda beatin', you know? So for the folks with really fancy stuff that can't afford to get damaged, he's the ideal guy. This place is a trap for business with him." He laughed a little. "Hell, for all I know, we might end up leaving here with twenty crates full of thousand-wong chocolates. You never know."

Fred worried his lower lip between his teeth. "That kind of work seems terribly unstable."

"It's enough to get by."

An electronic clock chime rang out in the distance and Fred suddenly shot up, nearly knocking the box of cherries from the bench between them. Gene reached out with quick reflexes just in time to keep them from spilling all over the ground. "Oh, _shit_. What time is it, you wonder?"

Gene hesitated, waiting for the clock to finish ringing. "Twelve-thirty, sounds like."

"Crap crap crap! I'm supposed to be ready with my dad for this god-awful meeting at one fifteen!" He glanced around, finding his bearings, and then took off running off to the bench's left. "See you some other time, Gene! Sorry to ditch you!"

"What about the cherries?" Gene called after him.

"Keep them! My treat!"

And before Gene could protest, Fred had darted around the corner of a building and vanished.

---

_He was a weird kid, but he got me to thinking about stuff, that's for sure. _

It took Gene about an hour to find his way back to their hotel room without Fred for a guide around the unfamiliar station. The box with the candy was secured tightly under his arm, almost in a protective manner. He had only eaten one more, determined to save the rest, possibly to share with his dad, or with Fred if he saw him again the next day. He realized they'd given each other no way to keep in touch; neither had offered up a phone number or even the place where they really lived. Of course, Fred wouldn't be that hard to find, what with his family name slapped up on so many corporations everywhere…

Gene realized suddenly that despite Fred's innate haughtiness and superiority, he _did _still want to keep in touch with him after this. It wasn't just the gift of the chocolate, though that certainly went a long way, but it was the other traits Fred exhibited – his seemingly uncharacteristic cynicism of all things high-class, the nature of his sense of humor, and the casual way he just breezed through things that made Gene himself a twinge uncomfortable. As he laid on his back in the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, Gene discovered that he had in Fred in half an hour what he had never had in anyone else the majority of his life: a legitimate friend.

With his father's job, they were hardly ever even in the same _system _from one week to the next. The two of them had to go where the money was, and sometimes the money wasn't anywhere. As skilled and capable as his father was, his job offered a lot of competition, and often they were out in extreme corners of the galaxy, taking jobs that no one else could do – or that no one else _would _do. Since his mother had left them for whomever that scumbag was, Gene and his father were making it on their own. They didn't need anyone else. And yet here was an extraordinarily unique opportunity: a friend whose name was everywhere, whose family owned bits and pieces of _tons _of systems. Conceivably, Gene would always be _somewhere _where he could contact Fred. He could feasibly reach him through any of the places the Luos owned – and then he'd have a partner, so to speak, a business ally who could offer him loans, to be repaid by…whatever he could do. A valuable asset in the form of an actual _friend_.

He spent part of the afternoon puzzling over the oddity that was Fred Luo before turning back to his video game and eating the rest of the chocolates himself.

---

_Even so, by the end of that weekend, I was worried – _worried_ – that I'd never see him again._

Gene was sprawled out on his stomach, aimlessly shooting away at digital robot monsters, when his father came back into the room that evening.

"Hey, kiddo," he said, crossing from the door to ruffle Gene's hair. The redhead scowled; he hated that.

"Hi," he said by way of response.

"Have you been sitting here playing that game all day?"

"No, I went out for a walk a little. There's another kid my age around here somewhere so we kinda goofed off around lunch time, and then I came back."

"Oh well that's great, son," his dad answered with a smile. "It's nice to see you making friends. I worry about you sometimes, you know?"

"Well, we move around a lot," Gene grumbled. "How do I even know when I'll see any of my 'friends' again?"

"You know I can't help that, kiddo," said his father. "We have to do what we have to do, Gene. Especially when it means I get _extremely high-paying jobs_!"

Gene shot up. "No way!"

His father was flashing him a large grin. "You bet! There's a company here that makes insanely fragile and _crazy _expensive parts for cybernetic prosthetics, and they've just had a meeting to confirm that they're sending a giant shipment off to Heiphong III to conclude a business deal. I just happened to be in the area when they were looking for trucker-pilots, offered them my spiel, and they were all over it."

"Dad, that's great!" Gene had turned off his game by now, not even bothering to save it, and was sitting up on the edge of the bed with wide, excited eyes.

"It's quite lucrative, but it's also pretty risky, Gene," he admitted. "Apparently, there's a band of outlaws haunting the space between Heiphong III and Heiphong IV, which we'd have to pass through to get from here to there. According to the man who signed me on, they're part of a rebel movement that wants such parts to be more affordable so that they can get out to a wider range of people."

"Doesn't work like that though, does it?" Gene said. "Those things cost lots of money to make."

"They do, and I feel sorry for the people who can't afford them, but there's nothing do be done. So, part of our contract involves _protecting _the goods as well as transporting them. We've got to make it through alive."

Gene thought it over, a little worried, but resigned himself to the danger and flashed a cheeky grin. "Well, sounds like an adventure, don't you think, Dad?"

His father smiled, but there was something a little sad about it. "Sure thing, kiddo. An adventure, just for you and me. Together, we can make it through anything. And someday we'll have enough money to settle someplace, and we can get a real house, and you can make some real friends."

"Yeah, Dad," Gene said. "…Real friends."

---

As soon as my dad got the advance payment for the trip, I wired two hundred and fifty wong to Fred's account. Four of the cherries I had eaten were really his.

**AN:** Omg, y'all, it wasn't a millennium; it was, in fact, a little less than a month and a half. This chapter was supposed to be more from Gene's perspective like the first was from Fred's, but Gene's voice is harder to write from_! Hopefully I accomplished what I was trying to do. Gahhhh…_

_Thanks a bunch to all three of my reviewers! It's nice to see that this series – and this pairing – still has support._


	3. Chapter 3

_The next time I saw Gene…well, I almost wished I hadn't. Almost._

"Well Freddie, you aren't dressed!" his mother exclaimed with only mild shock. Her hair was coiffed up into a flawless up-do, sparkling with glittering pins that perfectly matched her green cocktail gown. There were five of them, a matched set; four of them were emerald and one of them was cut dragonite. They had been a gift for Christmas – maybe her birthday – Fred couldn't remember.

"I'm not going," he said, as if such a fact should be obvious, and he sank down further into the plush gray armchair in front of the vid screen. He was just trying to watch this absurd musical competition; he thought his favorite contestant was going to win. The man had quite an excellent stage presence.

"Oh, but the Andos have been asking after you for months now! Minerva and Yukito haven't seen you since the summer – oh, and _Reiko_'s going to be there!"

"Mother – "

"You know, I always thought she carried a bit of a torch for you, if you get my meaning – "

"_Mother_ – "

"She's quite an attractive young lady, Freddie – "

"You go on and have fun, Mother," Fred insisted, trying not to groan. "I really don't feel like going anywhere right now, thank you. Tell Minerva I send my regards."

Mrs. Luo sighed. "You really are such a teenager, Fred. I guess I ought to leave you alone. Shall I tell the cooks to make you anything specific?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Suit yourself, I suppose. Just don't grow too bored without us."

"Allison! The car is waiting!" called Mr. Luo from the floor below.

"Well, I ought to be off. Cheer up, Freddie, for goodness's sakes."

"Bye, Mother."

She clattered down the stairs in her colossal heels, fussing in the main lobby over finding her gloves and her handbag and did this coat match her dress and was her necklace on quite right, and then their voices grew fainter and the car took off, and soon Fred could no longer hear anything but the man on the vid screen singing his final notes. Drat.

The judges of the competition began to dither on about the strengths and weaknesses of his performance, but Fred didn't really care any more. He set the vid screen on standby with a flick of the remote and reclined back further into the enormous armchair with a heavy sigh. Then, just as quickly, he hopped up and began striding anxiously down the long hallway that led back to his own bedroom.

"Come on, Freddie, go to the party with Mum and Dad," he griped, mimicking his mother's voice and mannerisms. He reached out a hand and started thwacking it periodically against the wall as he walked. "Let's go out to a _social_, Freddie. Let's go talk to the _Andos_, Freddie. Reiko carries a _torch _for you, Freddie." The hallway took a sudden turn and Fred grabbed onto the corner in the wall, swinging around it with a pivot and walking faster in time with the rising volume and irritation of his voice. "Come talk to _Reiko_, Freddie! Maybe then you won't be _gay_, Freddie!"

He finally came to his own room and burst across the threshold with a wordless growl of rage, slamming the door behind him and collapsing into his huge bed with its sea of quilts and pillows. His eyes lost focus as he stared at the ceiling, trying to control his rage.

About six months ago, Fred Luo had come to the startling realization that he was gay. For any boy his age – he'd be fifteen in a few short months – this posed an inevitable problem, but Fred was without bias one of the most self-confident people he knew, and came to terms with it rather quickly. The part of the whole situation that then became the biggest problem was his subsequent lack of desire to produce a business heir, no matter what well-off "young ladies" his parents would ever decide to fling his way. Had it not been for this issue, Fred had no doubt he would have had a much easier time coming out to his parents; it would barely have been more difficult than admitting it to himself. As it stood, it had taken him nearly two months to compile enough placating reasons and compose his "speech" mentally. He'd pulled his parents aside after dinner one night and been very eloquent and straightforward about the whole thing.

His parents' reactions, put mildly, had been mixed. His father exploded into a fit of predictable outrage, while his mother (equally predictably) had burst into tears. More as a safety precaution than anything else, Fred had holed up in his room for a week or more, giving his parents time to come to terms with it as he had.

Except that they didn't.

Now, his mother was trying to play it off as thought it had never happened. She'd begun to treat him as though he were a little bit younger – or perhaps a little bit mentally deficient – but for the most part, she operated under the premise that Fred was just an awkward teenager who was "experimenting" and having an "adolescent crisis." Fred believed wholeheartedly that had his mother paid more than surface attention to him his entire life, she would realize that he didn't say things of such magnitude arbitrarily or for things that were "just a phase." On the other end of the spectrum – and Fred couldn't really decide which was worse – Mr. Luo wouldn't even look his son in the eye. The most conversation they ever had involved his grades in school or passing some sort of food tray at dinner. While he was at least acknowledging the fact that Fred was serious, the reaction was still far from positive.

Fred flopped over onto his stomach with a sigh and scrunched up his eyebrows to glare halfheartedly at the bright red headband resting on his forehead. For some strange reason, he found himself wishing for the person who suggested it. Though they had only known each other for a few brief hours, Fred felt like Gene Starwind might just understand where he was coming from.

The jangling bell of his house phone rang and he rolled across the bed to where it sat on his nightstand. "What is it, Adam?"

The head butler replied with a rather perplexed tone in his voice. "There's a young man standing outside at the front gate. He looks quite worse for wear, but he insists that he knows you and that we ought to let him in."

Fred grimaced. "He's probably some poor sap from my school whose family just went broke in the stock market, or something. Can you patch the outside camera through to the vid screen in my bedroom? I'd at least like to know who it is."

"One moment, sir." There was a fumbling on the other end, and Fred took the slight delay to turn his own screen on, anxious to see what kind of pathetic soul would come grubbing around at the gates of the prestigious Luo Family.

The image that greeted him on the screen – a tanned, lanky redhead with two gashes on his left cheek that must have been serious at the time but appeared to be healing – was the last Fred expected to see but perhaps the first he'd have wished for.

"Adam?" he said faintly, the receiver dangling a little in his slack hand as he kept his gaze fixed on the screen. "Let him in, and send him up to the second floor lounge."

"Are you sure, sir?" asked the butler.

"Positive. You know what? Ring Kathleen in the kitchen and tell her we'd like some cake, too."

_I bet he's hungry_.

---

_It didn't take a genius to realize that something was up – in a serious way._

Gene looked an utter mess. The scabbed-over lines on his face were just the beginning of a mess of half-healed injuries, including a brace on his wrist and an even worse looking gash on his right bicep, revealed when he took off his battered black denim jacket. Almost in contrast – perhaps even in defiance – his left bicep was now adorned with a large tattoo of a star, bright red outlined in fiery gold-orange. Fred thought it quite suited him, but he didn't say anything. He let Gene do most of the talking.

"I guess you're wonderin' why I'm here," Gene said sheepishly, staring into his glass of soda water rather than meet Fred's gaze.

"Well, obviously," Fred said, trying to make it as jokingly as possible. It didn't really work.

"I've been everyplace I can think of," the redhead continued. "I've only got a little bit of money, so I haven't been able to travel far. I blew most of my cash getting from the site of the crash to here, and even then I had to do a couple odd – "

"Crash?"

Gene looked up at Fred, out from underneath his thick, furrowed eyebrows. "My dad's dead."

Fred gasped, very softly, and bit down awkwardly on his lower lip. The boy seated across from him swished the ice in his glass and sighed. "I oughtta start at the beginning, I guess. See, when I met you on Red Rush, well, my dad got this really great job the same day. So that's why I never really caught up to ya and said goodbye – sorry 'bout that. So we left first thing the next morning, and we were transporting, from Heiphong III to Heiphong IV. Part of the job was that my dad had to protect the stuff too, though, y'know? There were these bandits or something, lurkin' around between the two worlds. Well, we get more'n halfway through and we still haven't seen any bandits, so Dad starts letting me learn out to fly the thing." Gene paused and smiled sadly down at his melting ice. "It was pretty easy, you know? I felt like I could do anything, and Dad was so proud of me…

"Well, we hadn't even gotten a message from any nearby ship for over an hour, let alone seen one, so he says 'Why don't you take a nap, Gene? We'll be there when you wake up.' I was kinda tired, so I listened to him…and when I woke up, it was because the cockpit alarm was freakin' out and some ship on the outside was smashing at the hull. Things were bustin' open and blowin' up, and my dad was bleeding from the head. Before I knew it, he shoved me into an escape pod and closed the hatch, and I couldn't – couldn't get back out to help him – " Gene fidgeted uneasily with the glass in his hands, as though he were thinking about putting it back on the table between them, but kept it there. "He said to me, 'Sorry, son, I want you to live.' I think…I think I'd rather have died."

He wasn't really crying, but Fred could practically feel the emotion rolling off him, like real teardrops. Though he was older and more masculine, Gene looked like a child to Fred, one in need of comfort and assistance – direction.

"I just got no place to go," Gene repeated.

"Shhh, calm down," Fred said. "It's okay. Could you – did you manage to get a glimpse of the ship that ambushed you?"

"Only a little. I was kinda…panicked, you know? It was this sleek – _thing_ – yellow, I think, maybe more of a gold or maybe even orange – ugh, I can't describe it, I'll know it when I see it, you know? Because you better believe me," Gene swore, "I am going to find the bastards that did this and make them pay out their _asses_."

"Just calm down," Fred told him, rising from his chair purposefully. "I'll find a good room for you. You can stay here for a couple of days, and I'll loan you some cash to get off-planet to a place with some higher-paying – "

"Are you freakin' crazy?" Gene hissed, almost frantically, grabbing at the bottom hem of Fred's shirt with a strong grip. "I can't go back out there."

"Back out where?" Fred was rather confused.

"_Space_."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Fred," Gene said desperately. "I was out there for _sixteen hours_. Just – just floating in space – "

"Oh, Gene," Fred gasped, dumbstruck. Alone in an escape pod for sixteen hours? It was a wonder he hadn't gone completely mad.

"Just floating, and I couldn't see anything but stars and – and black – Fred, I _can't_."

_So, _so _like a child, _Fred thought, staring down into Gene's wide, dark eyes. This – this was the boy who had proclaimed to him so strongly the many virtues of outer space upon their last meeting? This pitiful-looking, broken little boy?

"Just come with me," Fred said reassuringly. "I know the perfect room to put you in, and I'll send you up any video game you like."

Fred took Gene's hand and guided him down the hallway to the spare bedroom closest to his own.

---

_I don't believe I slept a wink that night, the more I think about it_.

Enshrouded in his thick blankets, Fred lay staring at the ceiling, tugging absentmindedly on his ear from time to time as he willed himself to fall asleep. It was a bit early – usually he'd stay up till one or two in the morning, watching his vid, or playing a game, or reading a book, or _something _– but the slight difference shouldn't have disrupted his sleep schedule _this _much. He heard his parents arriving back late at night, his father roaring heartily and his mother giggling like a loon, both caused by excess alcohol. He didn't need to feign sleep; they didn't even bother to check up on him before retiring to their own bedroom to sleep off the drinking. He decided they didn't need to know about Gene just yet.

_Gene_. Fred was fairly certain that _Gene _was the reason he had yet to fall asleep. Gene's arrival had been the most interesting thing to happen to him in a long while – probably the most interesting thing that had happened around the Luo estate since Fred's own ill-received coming out. Between his shattered disposition and his heartbreaking story, the redhead had evoked an insane amount of emotion in Fred. Coping with this emotion was difficult considering Fred had been feeling nothing more than apathy for a good while. That was a huge part of his restlessness: he simply couldn't remember how to cope with all this _feeling_.

But part of it _wasn't_ that. Gene's predicament truly _upset _Fred – not just as another human being, but as a friend. How could Fred have any idea what Gene was going through? He tried to imagine how he would react were his own father to die and nearly laughed out loud despite himself. He couldn't really picture himself caring at all, let alone reaching the veritable depths of depression and shock that Gene seemed to have entered. No, he had no _possible _way to conceive what the other boy was experiencing, and that somehow made him even more depressed. He genuinely wanted to be there for Gene. It was like they were two sides of the same coin, with Gene having lost his parents in a very real way, and Fred having to cope with the absence of his own parents but for a completely different reason. They might just be allies. There really was a similarity there, you just had to turn your head and squint.

_Well, I'm dealing with it_, Fred thought wryly. _It only stands to reason that I be there to help Gene deal with it too_.

Fred continued to lay awake and stare at his ceiling for quite some time, even when he heard the house staff waking and bustling about with the morning garden routines and with breakfast. Gene had made it impossible for him to sleep.

---

_And I remember thinking to myself, "Fred, you stupid bastard, you're falling in love with him." _

**AN: **Well well well. Another two months, another new chapter. And another shoutout to my awesome reviewers! Thank you and Happy New Year!

Poor emo Gene and poor gay Fred. We love you! It'll all be better in the end (we hope)!


	4. Chapter 4

_The next time I saw Fred, I – well, I almost didn't recognize him. Almost._

He was taller, Gene decided. He looked like he'd grown more than Gene himself had in the time they'd not seen each other. He and Gene were practically the same height.

Gene shifted, rolling over onto his side to face the broad, curtained window, trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

He was skinnier, too. He'd been scrawny already, but with that sort of little-kid softness to him, almost making him look like a girl. He looked more like a guy now, albeit a guy with no body fat and bones sticking out all over the place. Gene took a little bit of pride in the way his own body was shaping up, from all the work he'd been doing to make money. His bones were rightly covered.

He still couldn't sleep, damnit. His back wasn't used to sleeping in a place that was actually comfortable.

And Fred had done something about his goddamn _hair_. That was the most surprising. Before it had been way too easy for him to duck down behind his unruly bangs and hide the intentions that could be seen in his eyes. Now with his hair back out of his face, his eyes were always there and readable, and Gene almost wondered if that wasn't worse.

Because Gene was pretty sure that Fred was a little _gayer_, too.

Not to say that Gene himself was the best read of _that _sort of thing. Heaven only knew that Gene had been wrong about things like that in the past. And it could just be the fancy-pants rich guy thing that was exuding from him, rather than the desire for dudes, but Gene was going to be keeping a watchful eye on his own ass nevertheless.

Oh. Maybe _that _was why he couldn't sleep.

He sighed into the thick blankets, rolled over again, and tried to keep his mind occupied with other things – like _what the hell he was gonna do now _– until he heard other people start to stir and decided it might be okay if he got up as well. He rose and fumbled his way to the bathroom, which like the bedroom was colossal. He hadn't seen a good shower in a few days so he stepped in and started to clean himself, taking extra care around those of his injuries that hadn't yet healed enough for him to ignore the pain. All of Fred's products _smelled _like something, which was irritating, but Gene didn't really care as long as he got clean.

No, he didn't start to care about anything else until he realized that he didn't exactly have a change of clothes.

"Oh, _great_," he groaned to himself, shaking excess water out of his ear as he contemplated the situation. Fred had promised him anything he might need, but Fred wasn't up yet, and Gene didn't feel comfortable calling around to the other people in the huge estate. Much like the glitzy station where the two of them had met, Fred's house unnerved Gene and made him feel awkward and above all incredibly poor.

Towel around his waist, Gene sat down on the edge of the bathtub with a sigh and contemplated _that _situation. Fred had said he could get him a job off-planet, but there was no way in the seven freaking hells that Gene was going back into space any time soon, if ever. Would there be a job available to him here on Sentinel, or would he again have to start fending for himself? He'd feel like shit asking to borrow some of Fred's money, though god only knew how much he had at his disposal; he needed to start making his own living without depending on or _using _other people like that. But the more he thought about it, the more he'd probably be screwed if he kept going on like this, from odd job to odd job, none of which he was particularly skilled at. He'd just have to talk to Fred.

Of course, that was going to be a little difficult when he didn't plan on leaving the room unless his hide was covered. Towel still tied as securely as possible, he headed back into the lavish bedroom to investigate his old clothes. Maybe they wouldn't be _too _bad…

But as he was passing through the door from the bathroom, Fred himself was entering through the door connecting the bedroom to the hallway. "I heard the shower, so I figured you were up, and I just wanted to know what you wanted for breakf – _ahh._"

They each stood, poised awkwardly in their respective doorways, and making eye contact that lasted for a horribly long amount of time. Gene felt himself blush red in mortification; on the contrary, Fred went even paler out of shock. Finally, Fred managed to tactfully avert his eyes and close the door a bit more, so that anyone who might pass by in the hallway wouldn't get the same eyeful of Gene in nothing but a towel.

"I'll, er, see what we can get you to wear," he said softly, and darted back off, slamming the door behind him.

---

_And it was that moment – that _exact _moment – that must have been the start of what our relationship would always be after that – well, for the most part, at least._

Fred had definitely been looking at him _like that_.

Aaaaaannnd this day was already turning out pretty miserable.

A few moments after the incident, an older male servant – he may have been the old guy from the gate – stepped briefly in to hand Gene a nice pair of jeans and a black tank top, along with some boxer-briefs that looked pretty generic but were probably worth more than everything Gene owned. Gene dressed in silence and though the clothes were way pricier than he was used to, at least they seemed a good fit and were in keeping with his style. The tank top especially was fun to him, as it allowed him to show off his tattoo. He imagined freaking out the maids and butlers with it at the breakfast table and grinned.

He didn't think he'd ever be fully ready to deal with Fred's house, but he finally talked himself into leaving the room and walking back out into the hallway, looking both ways down it before figuring out which way he had come from the night before and heading in that direction. He'd made it five or six steps when Fred came out of a door to his right, nearly bumping into him. Man, this guy was awkward!

"Oh – hi," said Fred.

"Hey," Gene said back, evenly as possible.

"So uh…as I was attempting to ask before that – interruption." Fred coughed and averted his eyes for a split second. "Is there anything that interests you for breakfast? I guarantee we've got it. My parents and I almost never eat breakfast food, so all of that stuff is way more likely to be on hand, should you want to eat it."

Gene thought about it for a second. "I could really go for some waffles."

"Sounds great. I'll ring up Kathleen, our head cook. She's a wonderful woman so long as you don't want her to make anything with tomatoes. She goes a little, er, overboard."

"I can't stand tomatoes," Gene said, making a face.

"Me neither!" said Fred, and they laughed together for a small moment. Gene could feel the morning's tension dissipate a little, and thought that today might not turn out so bad after all.

He followed Fred back through the sort of lounge room where they had sat the night before, where he'd been too preoccupied by his own sorry circumstances to see just _how _huge the vid screen was, and which video game systems Fred had rigged up (which, naturally, turned out to be just about all of them). But he only had a few seconds to look, because Fred kept walking, leading him down the massive central staircase to the marbled foyer, where they took a left – Gene tried to remember which ways the hallways turned, in case he had to get back there by himself – and passed through a narrow glass door into another massive room, this one also containing a massive table. Gene could only assume this was where the Luos ate their meals together, huge feasts laid out. They must have had to shout across the table at each other!

"This is the formal dining room," Fred said, still walking briskly. "We only really use this for giant parties and special occasions. You and I are just going to eat in here."

Embarrassed, though he had no real reason to be as he hadn't said anything, Gene darted to catch up with Fred again as he ducked through a smaller, more reasonable door to a not-quite-so-gigantic room with a bar island down the center and stools on either side. The cushions on the stools were dark blue leather, matching the interior scheme of the room, and it was on one of these stools that Fred hopped up, leaning against the counter with a sigh.

"I usually sleep so late that the concept of 'breakfast' becomes obsolete," explained Fred. "This is out of the ordinary for me. I really should stop being so lazy."

"Don't you have like, school or somethin'?" Gene asked, climbing into the stool across from him.

"I stopped attending the school where I was enrolled," said Fred. "The teachers were ignorant and the other students were horribly misbehaved. It may have been an elitist private school, but that didn't mean the kids were any less nasty. They just had more money to be nasty with." He spun lazily on the stool, not even a complete revolution before bouncing back the way he had come, his knees hitting the bar beneath its surface. "I've got a private tutor now, and he just comes in whenever I want him to, with a few guidelines making sure I get enough hours in. What about you?"

"I…my dad…we moved around too much for that. Never even stayed in one place long enough for me to make a class roster. I mean, I picked up what I needed to, you know? I'm not illiterate or anything, and I know enough about numbers to manage what tiny little bits of money I get my hands on. And I know enough Silgrian to cuss in it," he added with a smirk.

"_Yeh khett un ethrek-k_," Fred said offhandedly, with a teasing smirk back.

"You like it," retorted Gene.

"Hardly!" said Fred. "And especially not from a Silgrian." He shuddered. "It's almost enough to put me off my breakfast."

"Wouldn't be anything new though, right?" said Gene.

"I thought I was trying to break the habit."

"So your folks don't make you get up and eat with them, or anything?"

"My parents sleep in worse than I do. In case you haven't noticed, they're still not up and about, and it's at least ten-thirty."

"Good point."

"It's usually because they come home drunk," Fred grumbled. "At least my dad does. And he freaks out if Mom's not there when he wakes up, because he thinks she's cheating on him. Which she would never do, but Father's not very sensible."

"My mom cheated on my dad," Gene said quietly. "'S why she's not with us – with me."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Fred, with an air of genuine sympathy.

"Nah, it's all good. Dad said she was kind of a whore."

"Still, that's no reason to – " But Fred wouldn't get to finish the sentence, because two young women dressed in smart black suits appeared from what seemed like nowhere (but which Gene figured out a few minutes later was a concealed servants' entrance on the back wall), and each was carrying a silver tray; one held two plates full of freshly-baked waffles, and the other a plethora of fruits, syrups and spreads to add to them. There was also a pitcher of milk and a pitcher of orange juice.

"Thank you so much, ladies," said Fred. "This looks excellent."

The shorter of the two blushed a little, but it wasn't at Fred's praise. "Who's your friend there?" she asked gesturing toward Gene.

"Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me. Margaret, Lizzie, this is Gene Starwind. He's a friend of mine from – well, we met on Red Rush Station a little while ago. Gene, these two are the full time kitchen hands, Margaret Kim and Lizzie Dartmouth."

Margaret was the shorter one with the thick, black hair, and Lizzie was the taller blonde. Gene eyed them both, trying to be courteous. "Nice to meet you."

"I'll say!" said Margaret, and Lizzie elbowed her in the ribs. They exchanged a glance, then both turned apologetically to Fred, and darted back out of the room without saying anything more.

"Well that was interesting," said Fred, keeping his eyes from Gene's as he grabbed his plate of waffles and started loading them with cherry sauce and whipped cream.

Gene, a traditionalist, reached blindly for the maple syrup. "They're pretty cute, Fred. That Lizzie especially, she's got a nice figure. You think?"

Fred paused for a moment, then looked up at Gene with a small frown. "You know, Gene, I wouldn't rightly know. Considering I'm not very interested in girls."

Gene plopped the bottle of syrup back down on the bartop with a thud and a large grin. "I knew it! Called it hours and hours ago. You've turned out totally queer, haven't you!"

"Well don't look so glum about it," Fred groaned, but Gene was still chuckling to himself.

"How'd that go over with Mom and Dad, huh? Bet they're not too thrilled, with their precious baby boy not wanting to give them little grandbabies – "

"Oh don't be such an _ass_, Gene Starwind!" Fred cried suddenly, and hopped off the barstool, heading for the dining room door. He turned back only to utter, "It just seems I'm destined to never enjoy breakfast," before storming from the room entirely and leaving Gene dazed and confused in mid-laugh.

_Shit._

---

_They say hindsight's always twenty-twenty, and…yeah, well, the more I think about it, the more I realize I shoulda known how dumb an idea comments like that were._

Stalling long enough to chug down his glass of milk, Gene followed after Fred, trying to remember his way through the different turns they had made on their way to the breakfast room. He probably would have been utterly out of luck had he not been a faster runner than Fred, but as it was he managed to catch up in a few short minutes and trap Fred between a sofa and a corner to apologize.

"Look, I didn't mean for it to come out that way, I was just – "

"I know what you were _just_," Fred cut in. "Look, I understand that you're Mister Big, Bad and Heterosexual, but the fact of the matter is, I'm _not_. And that's not a joke, and there's nothing _funny _about it at all. You got that?"

"Yeah, I _got _it," said Gene, defensive and a little angry. "It's just – it's new and weird, y'know? I guess my first reaction was to laugh it off. It's gonna be hard to get used to."

"You act as though we know each other so well, and we've got some great friendship to be disrupted by my coming out."

"Well, Freddie-boy, the _fact of the matter _is that up until you, I didn't really have too many people my own age to actually call _friends_," Gene said, sitting down on the arm of the sofa now that he knew Fred wasn't going to run away.

Fred leaned against the wall, sagging in what was mostly relief but held the tinges of something sadder. "You too?"

"We're in some pretty retarded circumstances, you and me, you gotta admit," said Gene. "We gotta stick together, or something – though that's gonna be tough because you've got all this money and _I'm _gonna have to go out there and _work _– "

And Fred shot up from the wall, eyes wide beneath his headband, making Gene a little nervous with his sudden change in mood.

"I've _got _it! That's the perfect job for you!"

---

_And this – this epiphany of his was the beginning of one of the hardest times of my life._

**AN: **Who thinks they know what Gene's speshul new job is? X3 Be prepared to wait forever to find out; you saw how long it took THIS update. Sorry! I'm writing other stuff (original fiction, you know) and I'm also in AP English, so you must forgive me if I often find myself without time. But please keep reviewing! You give me a reason to liiiiiive. Or something.


	5. Chapter 5

_I knew I was in for it._

Fred _begged_. He couldn't remember the last time he had intentionally done something so juvenile and humiliating, and he hated himself for acting just as his mother treated him, like a child. But the begging and the whining was part of his act, and the act was part of his strategy, just as much as catching his parents while they were hung over and irritable was part of his strategy, and appealing to his mother first was, too, like always. His father never listened.

"Freddie, do you really think this is a good idea?"

"Yes!" he insisted. "Mother, _please_. I was going to send him to work with Lazlo, but he's completely space-phobic now and won't even leave Sentinel! We can't just turn him out on the streets – "

"Yes we can," grumbled his father around a large mug of coffee.

Fred didn't even acknowledge him. "He wants to work, Mother, and don't you think it would be good for us to keep him here, to give him a respectable occupation rather than the odd jobs he's been taking on?"

Allison Luo sighed, and scuffed bits of her eggs benedict back and forth across her plate with her fork. "The boy's just so – " she was interrupted by a sudden cry from Gene, where he was playing video games in the next room – "_uncultured_. I would hate for anyone to think we weren't holding our employees to a certain level of professionalism."

"He's had a rough life!" Fred cried. "Look at this as an opportunity to take someone who otherwise would have turned out crass and useless – " he hated describing Gene that way, but it was _all part of the act_ – "and shape them into a functioning member of high society!"

"Rex, what do you think?"

"I think," said Mr. Luo, eyes cold, "that your son just wants to keep this kid around because they're _fags_ together."

Fred winced, and yet simultaneously flashed his smile even wider and tried not to think about Gene standing in that bedroom in nothing but a towel. And he pulled out his absolutely horrible ace. "Mother, Gene just needs a friend. He hasn't had the chance to meet too many people his own age. And if you let him stay on and train for this position, I'll go on a date with Reiko."

His mother was caving. She shot her husband a questioning look; the glare he returned was frustrated and hopeless. She turned back to Fred with a faint smile and mumbled, "Sure, sure. If you can talk Arnie into it, I'm sure we can find a room for him."

Fred _beamed._ "Thank you, _thank_ you, Mother. You have no idea how much this will mean to him." _Or how much it means to me, _he added silently. He darted from his parents' personal kitchen, skidding into the hallway to face the eavesdropping Gene, identical grins on their faces.

"Looks like you're about to become my new bodyguard."

---

_And then it wasn't going to be "the last time I saw Gene Starwind." He'd be a five-minute walk away in the security housing wing._

"You only have to train three days a week until you're seventeen," said Arnie, the short beefy man who was in charge of the Luo estate security forces. He was speaking directly to Gene, but Fred had tagged along just to see what was going on. He was extraordinarily curious about the whole thing, because he didn't spend a whole lot of time in the presence of the guards now that he rarely left the grounds. And if he did, he tried to dodge them – they tended to just get in the way. People who might get it into their heads to kidnap the Luo heir wouldn't recognize him on sight anyway.

Arnie was an interesting character, to be sure. The hair that had yet to be consumed by his receding hairline was tugged back into a greasy blond ponytail at the base of his skull. His right leg was prosthetic from mid-thigh downward – his knee joint whined ever so slightly if he walked too slowly – and his nose had obviously been broken in the past. With his grizzled demeanor, the voice that came out was very odd: low and reedy, almost like he would be a good singer, and with that accent that Terrans from British descent had somehow still not abandoned. He was a good man, Fred decided.

He was still speaking. "You're not legally permitted to have extensive weapons training until you're seventeen and six months, anyway, so that's two days of the week knocked out right there. The other two you're given free are required by law for minors under the employ of private organizations. When's your birthday, kid?"

"January first, Earth calendar," Gene answered, almost proudly.

"Western New Year," said Arnie, and smiled at him. "It fits ya." Arnie wrote the date down on the paper he'd been leaning over, filling in a required field in what looked like a ton of paperwork that had to be filled in order for Gene to be listed as an employee. Fred knew what most of the forms were and did not envy Gene for the tedium he'd have to undergo shortly.

"Okay, well. Until July first of the Earth calendar, then, you're not allowed to handle more than a tazer and one of these." Arnie drew the short double-edged knife from the strap on his left thigh and showed it to Gene. "Guns come later. You got just under a year, so the anticipation shouldn't kill ya. Now, once you turn seventeen, you'll have to train more often and in more grueling conditions. That's when the kid gloves come off, yeah? That's also when we're allowed to fire you without compensation if we figure you're not gettin' serious about the job. Any slackin' off could lead to the injury or death of your charge, and that's not a risk we can afford to take. Once you get enough training that me and the rest of the team feel like you can pass the physical proficiency tests, we'll make you take 'em, and if you do pass 'em you can stop training except for the twice-weekly consistency exercises to keep ya familiar with what you're doin'. I can't see you havin' too much trouble with that, though, since you seem pretty tough already." Arnie turned to Fred. "Where'd you find this kid, Master?"

Fred grinned, mostly at Gene. "He turned up on my doorstep like a lost little puppy. He's lucky I deigned to let him in at all."

"Hey, don't be a dick, Fred!" said Gene with a half-hearted scowl.

Arnie jumped in again. "That's another thing. If we hire you on, you gotta start addressing the family formally. I don't care if you two are makin' out behind the pillars in the ballroom when no one's watchin', if you're out in public or in the company of anyone else here at the estate, you have to act respectful."

Gene flushed at Arnie's suggestive comment, but Fred didn't really notice. He was too busy imagining the scenario, and contemplating just how nice it might be…he knew the corner of the ballroom that offered the most privacy, too, from hiding out during disgusting social events…

When he snapped back to reality it was to find Arnie posing a question to Gene. "The preliminary physical and the employment paperwork together are way too much to handle in one sitting, so pick one or the other to do first."

Gene didn't even have to think on it. "The physical. Just lookin' at that stack of stuff is already makin' my head hurt. I'll come back to it tomorrow."

"All right then. Come over here."

Arnie maneuvered Gene to the section of the security office that held all the basic measurement devices. As Fred watched, the older man took Gene's height, weight, and blood pressure, in addition to a blood sample. Gene also darted in and out of an adjacent bathroom to give a urine sample. When all of the simple work was done, Arnie used the radio at his belt to call the on-grounds physician, and told Gene they were going on to the official examination room.

"Your little friend is almost done, Master," Arnie teased. "Go on back to your side of the house, we're just doing the clinical part now." Gene gave Fred a look, too, and so Fred left the security office and started heading back to his room by way of the kitchen, where he planned on grabbing a glass of grape juice.

He'd downed about half the cup when he realized that right that minute, in another part of his very own estate, Gene Starwind was naked. Thankfully, he had the self-control to keep the juice in his mouth.

---

_It was at that point that I genuinely began wondering whether having Gene in my house all the time might have been a _bad _idea as opposed to a good one._

It took every ounce of Fred Luo's business composure to keep him from calmly finishing the drink, calmly walking up to his room, and masturbating.

Turning the shower he had never really taken down to just barely lukewarm helped a lot as well.

Fred had never been aware that he even _had _so many hormones. Where were they hiding on a regular basis? They didn't flare up around some of the more attractive male staff; they stayed subdued while Fred was watching that singing competition, even when his (admittedly very cute) favorite contestant was performing. So what was it about Gene – about Gene not even _doing _anything – that brought them to such a raging boil?

Well, it wouldn't do to keep dwelling on it, because sooner or later the water would actually run _cold_, and his parents always fussed at him if he took longer than forty-five minutes in the shower, claiming that while they could afford it it really was just unnecessary.

He toweled his hair dry and breathed in deep, then, with every intent of clearing his mind along with the exhale. It almost didn't work as he began tying his headband into place, but Fred remained resolute, and when he faced Gene again, clad in clean clothes and smelling vaguely of citrus, he was able to look him in the eye and not want to melt through the floor.

"How'd it go?" he asked, as they switched some cords around to rig up a different gaming system.

"The heart monitor was acting up for a couple seconds, but it was pretty smooth other than that," Gene reported, adding, "_Master_."

Fred rolled his eyes. "You know, between you and me, I really can't stand that and there's no need."

"Just trying to get into the habit," Gene said. "Wouldn't wanna piss off Arnie, he looks like he could eat me."

"No lie," Fred agreed, and then, "That should be it. I'll warn you ahead of time I'm actually quite good at this one."

"You ever been to the arcade across town – Neon Glitch?" Gene caught himself, making his own correction. "Or no, I guess you wouldn't have. Well, the high score on this machine is me, for second, third _and _fourth place."

"But not first," Fred pointed out, smirk twisting into place on his lips.

"That's because I got upped by some freak genius six-year-old," said Gene, "and I swear to God that kid hotwired the thing. He's _scary_."

"Well, let's see you back your talk, then, mister hot-shot arcade whiz bodyguard." Fred turned the console on, tossed Gene the player two controller (which he caught with extraordinary ease), and planted himself in the chair to Gene's left.

_Naturally_, Fred thought, when Gene scrolled over and selected the red model of racing ship. It was flashy and powerful, and Fred had gotten some of his better scores with that one, but the younger boy usually preferred the sleeker and more subtle silver ship, which was much more maneuverable. He chose that one instead.

"I coulda bet money you'd pick that one," said Gene.

"Funny, I was thinking the same about the one you've chosen," said Fred. He turned to look at Gene, and Gene faced him too, but while they were swapping smiles and Gene was distracted Fred went ahead and hit _start _and Gene didn't realize it until the race countdown had already gotten to _two_.

"You cheat!" he cried at once, rapidly trying to reconfigure his hands to the controls of the game in time to get the power boost at takeoff.

"I like to think of it as strategic negligence," Fred replied smoothly, and he was already pulling ahead of Gene in the race.

They'd picked a simple track, the one tricky aspect of it being the high number of essential checkpoints that one had to pass through. Fred had it practically memorized, so he focused most of his attention on making sure he was a decent distance ahead of Gene. Count on Gene to know a shortcut he didn't, however, and they were neck and neck most of the second lap. In the end, Fred edged the redhead out by the slimmest of margins, smirking to himself as he received the grand prize splash-screen. Gene was quick to cry rematch.

"I'm used to the arcade controls, with the VR eyescreen!" he insisted. "And you cheated. Play me again, and on a harder track. You just won because that one's so easy and you caught me off-guard, you jerk."

"What happened to 'master'?" Fred joked, but he acquiesced and soon they were darting around the Silgry system and its multiple nebulae.

Having proven himself already, Fred cared less about winning the second time and started to let his mind wander. He was planning out a schedule that aligned his schooling with Gene's bodyguard training – it worked almost perfectly, except for the one day a week that Gene would have free while Fred still had to study. That way they could spend the optimum amount of time getting to know each other better, and for Fred to make sure Gene knew his way around the estate, and maybe for Gene to take Fred on down to that arcade on the other side of the city, to play against him in his own element.

He lost, but he didn't mind. For the moment, Gene was just his friend, not a rival and not his bodyguard – and thankfully, Fred was feeling all right about not pushing it any further.

For the moment.

---

_It was a good idea, then. But too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and I was about to spend four years with the best thing that ever happened to me._

**AN: **I looked all over the place for what Gene's actual birthday was, and I didn't find anything; I got his height, weight, age, and blood type, but nothing that indicated that I couldn't just make a birthday up myself. So sorry if it's wrong.

And I bet you can't guess who's beating Gene on that arcade game, now can you? XD


	6. Chapter 6

_I knew I had my work cut out for me._

_Chunk!_

The low thump-click of the gun being fired with the silencer on precluded by a split second the bullet itself, whizzing through the air toward the thin cutout of a target in the shape of a humanoid silhouette. It pierced the androgynous shape an inch or so off from where its left eye would have been, had it been real.

This was how Gene liked it: firing at the range, no need for the muffling helmet because the silencer was on but he wouldn't have used one anyway. The feel of the real weapon through the scar tissue on his right hand. The kickback from the shell's release, that the VR training programs just couldn't _quite _manage to replicate.

Counting the bullet-holes he'd made himself, rather than shooting CGI enemies that fell and vanished, and waiting for the electronic tally at the end.

_Chunk! _

The second bullet hit the opposite side of the face, just inside from the right ear. Not that the cutout had ears. But still. That shot would have kept a C'tarl-C'tarl completely out of a fight, clutching its head in anguish. Gene had never really liked C'tarl, and the sentiment had only deepened since Fred's poor relations with one – on his first solo negotiation, which took place over the issue of some kind of alien explosives – had led to an attempt on his life, which Gene had barely thwarted in time.

But that was almost a year ago. He really ought to let it go. He had more pressing issues to deal with.

_Chunk!_

This one pierced the target's abdomen, echoing the stabbing sensation in Gene's own gut, and finally, he let out a sigh, set down the gun, and tugged off the protective goggles he'd been wearing before stepping out of his assigned booth at the range and heading back toward the main facility. Aggravated as he was, he went so far as to drag a hand through his shaggy red hair in frustration as well, lingering to tug at the small blue stud in his ear before he realized exactly what he was doing and growled. Also in aggravation.

The assignment shouldn't have come as a surprise to him. Fred had recently turned eighteen, after all – along with a birthday party fit for at least three kings, including a massive lemon cake and a publicity stunt ceremony that made Fred seem more like a coming-of-age debutante than a rising business mogul. Gene had been shedding confetti from his hair – in the shower, onto his pillow – for almost a week.

And yet he hadn't quite been prepared for what Arnie had said to him that morning.

_"The Master needs self-defense classes."_

_"What, all of the sudden?" Gene had retorted. He and Arnie held almost the same title now. Gene was good. Damn good. Gene knew he was better than Arnie. Hell, Arnie knew he was better than Arnie. Fred only kept him where he was because he'd been such a good man to the force in the past. And because the old blond bastard didn't have anyplace else to go._

_"Don't be a smartarse," Arnie said. "Because the Master is eighteen now. He's wanted for ages to stop being babied, and it's finally gotten to the point where nobody can legally do it any more. So he's gonna have more freedom and he's gonna wanna do more things solo. So I think he should be able to look after himself for at least two seconds before we can make it to the scene, you know?"_

_"I wouldn't trust his scrawny ass to ward off an assassin as far as I could throw it," Gene said with a laugh. Although considering exactly _how _scrawny said ass was, Gene could probably toss the guy pretty far…_

_"How long have you been working here, and you still haven't gained a better sense of respect for the Master?" Arnie chastised. "If you weren't so damn good he'd kick you out."_

Same to you, pal, _Gene thought, but said nothing along those lines. Instead he wondered, "So what has all this got to do with me?"_

_"Well I figured you ought to _teach _him, smartarse."_

_Had Gene been drinking anything he'd have gargled it up into his nose out of shock. "Say what now?"_

_"Obviously I'm gonna be no use, with this crap leg," said Arnie, jostling the prosthetic as though it were a given. "Maybe if I were teaching him to use a gun, but this is hand-to-hand stuff. I could leave him to Yukko, but she's a good eight inches shorter than he is, not to mention a woman. You're the closest match we've got to him, physically, so you'd be the best bet for making sure he knows which parts of him to protect and which parts to attack with."_

_"Punch with your fists, protect your nuts," Gene mumbled, "isn't it a little self-explanatory?"_

_"If you weren't my equal I'd make you drop and gimme at _least _fifty!" Arnie shouted. "Christ. Look, the lesson's set up for eight this evening, right after dinner, and I expect you to be there. The Master is counting on you."_

_"No problem, Arnie my boy. I wouldn't dare keep the Master waiting."_

But unfortunately, Gene had spent the rest of the day stewing in his frustration and trying to clear his head on the shooting range, so unless he came up with a plan of instruction in the next, oh, three minutes, he was going to have to wing it the entire time.

And winging it in close physical proximity with a for-all-intents-and -purposes debutante who was more than a little warm for his form was not exactly at the top of Gene's list of things he felt like doing today.

He sighed, again, and plopped down on the floor of the exercise room, staring at the ceiling, waiting, wishing he didn't feel so much like fidgeting with his ear.

_He showed up fashionably late, appropriately, though thank god he'd managed to end up in functional clothing_.

Gene had almost dozed off when Fred appeared, hovering over him like an irritated phantom. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Fred huffed, "Well?"

"Keep your shirt on," Gene griped as he gracefully rolled up into a sitting position. Or sweatshirt, as it turned out. The baggy grey one Fred was wearing only served to make him look more scrawny and unfit, and the tight blue workout pants clinging to his skinny legs didn't help matters. His omnipresent red headband was there, brushing all but his forwardmost bangs back away from his face. Gene thought it rather defeated the purpose but refrained from comment.

He raised a hand, as if to indicate that Fred might help him to his feet, and Fred complied, taking it and tugging slightly. But rather than pull himself up, Gene yanked Fred down, sprawled on his stomach, and then stood just as quickly, pressing his foot into the small of Fred's back. Fred whined.

"Yeah, well, that's what today's about, buddy. See how easy that was?"

Gene removed his foot and let Fred stand on his own. The taller man – yes, _taller_, somehow, Fred had just shot straight up – glared huffily at Gene, and Gene rolled his eyes.

"Look, if you weren't so damn unstable on your feet, that wouldn't have happened so easily." He paused. "I guess that's lesson one. Here, watch. Just stand there, like normal."

Fred stood, impatient.

Gene shoved him, hands rough at his shoulders, and Fred windmilled, rocking precariously back onto one foot and nearly landing on his butt on the training mats before regaining his balance. "See? You just stand there like a target. Anybody can be knocked over if they're acting like nothing's ever gonna happen. Try me."

"Try _what_, exactly?"

"Push me," said Gene. "Just like I did for you." Fred hesitated, but after a moment gave Gene a half-hearted nudge.

"No, no, like you mean it, dumbass."

"What is this supposed to accomplish?"

"Just do it." Fred pushed harder, and Gene made the same windmilling motion, though he stabilized much more quickly. "I was expecting it," he explained. "But look, watch what happens if I do this." Gene shifted his right foot back, about shoulder-width from his left and at a slight angle, and bent his knees just a tad. "Now try again."

Fred did, and Gene barely rocked before springing back to normal. He raised an eyebrow at Gene. "What did you just do?"

"I physically lowered my center of gravity. It sort of grounds you, and makes it harder for someone to knock you over – or to drag you away. Grab me on the wrist and pull," he instructed. Fred did so, and though he tugged pretty hard Gene barely budged that way, either. "You're way more stable this way. Harder to abduct."

"Oh, thanks."

"It's the truth, Fred. Now you have to do it."

Gene turned so he was aligned with Fred, nearly bumping hips with him before realizing they were probably a little too close, and demonstrated the defensive stance again. Fred mimicked him, somehow managing to invade the space Gene had just made in the process. Gene grit his teeth and stared at the side of Fred's head. At his ear.

_So this was how this was going to play._

"This is awkward," Fred griped. _Understatement of the century_, thought Gene.

"Hang on, hang on," Gene realized. "Are you right- or left-handed?"

"Left."

"_That's _what it is. If you're left-handed, I guess you do it in reverse. Drop your left foot back instead." Fred switched position, mirroring Gene rather than copying him completely. "Yeah, yeah, I guess that looks better. Good. See, the second part of this is what you do with your arms. Your recessive hand comes up a little – " Gene raised his left arm, bent at the elbow, hand curled into a loose fist – "and your good arm stays back, ready to punch the guy. It's kind of like a secret weapon."

"Are they going to assume I don't have a left arm?"

"Fred, do you have to be such a smartass about this?"

Fred sighed. "Look, I don't even see why I have to go through with this. Isn't all this defense stuff supposed to be, well, _your _job?"

"Hey, you're the one that's always bitching about being treated like you can't handle yourself!"

"I _can _handle myself, in areas where handling myself is necessary. This isn't one of them."

"Then why didn't you skip this lesson? Why are you even down here, Fred? Are you just here to stare at my ass while we get all sweaty and up close and personal?"

Fred narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth, as though deeply offended that Gene would even go there. "So that's what this is about."

"Yeah. That's what this is about."

Fred stormed from the exercise room, fists tight at his sides. Gene groaned loudly and went back to the shooting range.

Sometimes he just needed to blast the hell out of stuff.

_I shoulda been expecting it. Hell, I should _constantly _be expecting it._

_BLAM!_

The same gun, without the silencer. Gene was angry.

_BLAM!_

Fred had finished up his private home-schooling and enrolled in a business academy, with high standards and dubious morals. It was top-notch, naturally, nothing less for the heir of the prestigious Luo family.

Their only heir, it turned out, when Rex and Allison's divorce had led to the family being not so prestigious for a month or so. Allison peeled off the layers of the conglomerate that were hers; which, in the long run, was not a whole lot of the actual business, but most importantly covered advertising, a blow Rex had suffered greatly. Especially after the smear billboards had been erected a month or so later.

Fred, for his part, handled it amazingly well, considering neither parent had particularly wanted him. He'd ended up with Rex just by the nature of where the wealth fell. He even managed to graduate a year early. The guy was a natural.

Meanwhile, Gene had been following him around in shifts; hovering at the back of classrooms with other sullen guards to other whiny heirs; watching desperate, terribly mistaken women flirt coyly with Fred while Fred casually brushed them off. Laughing on the inside. Wishing only occasionally that the women would flirt with him instead.

But why try to get in the pants of a bottom rank bodyguard when you could have the wealthy mogul instead?

_BLAM! BLAM!_

Gene's life for the past few years had been pretty closeted, he realized as he blasted big messy holes through each of the target silhouette's shoulders. Going to fancy galas wasn't exactly his style, so the less excitable guard staff usually followed along with that. Conversely, Gene tended to blend into a crowd of average people better than some of the huskier, more stoic guys, so he followed Fred on such mundane errands as test driving around in new sports cars and swinging through the spaceport to pick up deliveries of the only brand of designer jeans Fred would wear, or weapons parts he wanted to examine himself, or chocolate-covered cherries.

Then there was the fact that he still wouldn't set foot on a spacecraft that actually planned on taking off.

_BLAM!_

Gene didn't get to see other people in his bracket of age and social class, period. He'd had sex all of once, with the desperate daughter of an associate of Rex's. She'd actually tossed money at him afterward. His drinking buddies were his co-workers, nearly all of whom were married men and hideous women. There was no one else to interact with. There was no one else thinking on his wavelength most of the time.

No one, really. Except Fred.

_BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!_

The shells obliterated the target's crotch.

_He came back, the next day. Still pissed at me, but ready to learn some punches._

A/N: Sorry this chapter has taken so, so long! Also sorry that it's a little short, but actually, what was going to happen in this chapter ended up expanding into two or three different chapters, so with any luck you might get parts seven and eight much sooner than usual! Oh, and I hope people don't mind the time skip. I'm only going to time-skip twice: once now, and once later to omit the contents of the actual series episodes (since you all know what's happening anyway!). This fic is pre-series and post-series at the same time!

Anyway, uh…please review?


	7. Chapter 7

(A/N: I'm putting this at the beginning this time because I felt like I owed you guys an apology. I'm coming to the end of my first ever semester of college right now, so that should give you a clue as to how my life has been lately. I've had to adjust to an entirely new circle of friends, an entirely new workload, an entirely new sleeping and eating schedule…there were a few weeks where it was just hell. I really appreciate anyone that's stuck around anxiously awaiting this chapter.

That said, I feel like I also owe you guys a fair warning that this chapter gets kind of X-rated. Consider this the rest of my apology. X3)

---

_That arrogant bastard knew I was in love with him._

Fred Luo had decided to give up on Gene Starwind.

He'd been working his hardest since the day Gene was hired to bring him around, but the man was apparently convinced he was one hundred percent heterosexual and planned never to stray from that straight and narrow path, thank you very much. Never mind how limited his female options were. Never mind how his flirtatious confidence oozed sexuality from the most mundane of actions, fascinating men and women alike. Never mind how hard Fred's gaydar went off when the circumstances aligned just so. That goddamn redhead didn't like men.

_That goddamn redhead doesn't like me_.

Fred lolled on his vast featherbed, tracing at a small section of the ornate patterning on the fabric of his comforter. He hadn't meant to just run out on Gene like that; he knew he needed the self-defense lessons just as badly as the staff said he did, and today had been proof of that. How easily Gene had knocked him to the floor, bruising his tailbone for certain…and yet that hadn't been the thing that had hurt the most. It was the things Gene said, the nonchalant way he wrote off those feelings – and the sad, sad fact that everything Gene had been saying was true. Between the student-teacher dynamic, the attacker-victim dynamic, and the testosterone that had soaked that workout room since the dawn of time, the sexual tension in there had been thick enough to cut.

And now he'd thrown it out in the open. What the hell was he thinking? It had to be worse than Gene just having a bad day – he'd had _plenty _of bad days in the past, and made sure to clue the whole rest of the galaxy in. Loudly. Gene may have whined and complained but he always did his job. He toed the line even as his overlarge white boots all but scuffed it out. This debacle was different. Something was eating Gene Starwind.

Fred sat up suddenly and made up his mind. There was no use being a baby about it. That's what this silly little set of lessons was supposed to train out of him anyway, wasn't it? And Fred Luo was nothing if not mature and responsible.

He'd just have to go back tomorrow and settle this once and for all.

---

_As much as I'd always admired the strength in his arms, I found myself feeling that the kicks would be what did me in._

Three days later, Gene was actually saying "oof!" when Fred's tasteful sneakers collided with the kickpads he was holding. After a round of ten Fred had to take a breather, and Gene tossed the pads down and sat on the bench next to him, bare chest displaying sweat dripping over a ridiculously high number of scars. Fred did his best not to look, hanging his head down between his knees as he panted breath back into his lungs.

"Remind me never to try and jump you," the redhead teased. He was acting like it had never happened. Fred could work with that.

"Well, Gene, if it were _you_ jumping me, I might not protest so much," he shot back. Gene flinched instinctively and Fred laughed, loving the expression on his face.

"You need to stop doing that, Fred," said Gene. "Really."

"Oh, come now, don't be such a spoilsport. You're allowed to make passes at pretty girls and I can't make passes at pretty boys? That seems a little hypocritical."

"And don't call me pretty!" said Gene. "Makes me feel like a goddamn girl."

_But you _are _pretty,_ thought Fred. _Can't you see? You're gorgeous_.

"If you've got to call me something, make it 'hot,' or pretty much anything else."

And ah, there was Gene. Of course he knew how attractive he was. Who was Fred kidding?

"So what's next, wise and powerful teacher?"

"Next we get some lunch! All this work is making me starved."

"What work? I've been the one doing everything!"

"Getting nailed in the gut is getting nailed in the gut, man, padding or no. C'mon, I could really go for a huge plate of pasta. Or some of that killer soup those kitchen girls make…"

"I'll see to it, of course," said Fred. He pulled a slim black communicator out from his bag – where he'd stashed it during his lesson, so as to not have it destroyed if he got hit in the pocket – and typed in a quick message to the kitchen staff regarding the thick oyster soup of which Gene spoke.

Gene laughed and Fred shot him a look. "What?"

"Nothin'. Just lookin' at you. You really are a hoity-toity rich kid through and through, aren't you?"

"I'll have you know that I am no such thing," Fred retorted. "As of two and a half weeks ago, I am a hoity-toity rich adult."

He looked up from the device and smirked at Gene, and Gene grinned back, and then they both started laughing, and kept laughing even as they walked out of the basement facilities and up to the kitchen.

There was a large loaf of crusty bread out on the counter when they got to the smaller room, with five or six different spreads in little glass dishes beside it, and from the full kitchens Fred could smell the soup boiling to completion. They'd been eating in here together the past couple of days because of Fred's self-defense training, and it was making Fred oddly nostalgic for the days just after Gene had shown up on his doorstep like a kicked puppy, when they'd played video games and gorged themselves on designer chocolates without a care in the world for Fred's career or his sexuality. He found himself wishing he could go back to that time, just for a few days; as though he were on vacation, only better, because he wouldn't have to take any bodyguards or paparazzi deflectors with him. It could just be Gene, and Fred, and that horrible racing game that neither of them had ever managed to best the other in.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Gene asked from across the kitchen island – and before Fred could catch himself, he answered, "Us."

That shut Gene right up, and they sat in awkward silence until the soup appeared. Gene started devouring it as soon as possible, dipping his bread in it, chugging down the frosty glass of lemonade that had been sent in along with it; Fred found himself suddenly much less hungry, and nibbled on a piece of bread slathered in butter and cherry preservatives the color of Gene's hair.

---

_I should have expected it. Hell, I can't believe I hadn't _always _been expecting it._

The letter – tacked uncouthly to Fred's door when he awoke the next morning – surely left nothing unsaid. Fred had to read it three times: once to make sense of Gene's nearly indecipherable handwriting, one to look at what was actually being said, and once more, to convince himself that it was actually happening.

Gene was going to leave. Here it was, spelled out in black and white.

He made several mentions of how this way of living was incredible, and how he wished he'd been able to take advantage of it forever, which Fred supposed Gene thought was him being witty and facetious but which struck Fred with notes of just a bit too much honesty. But, Gene continued in questionable grammar, what he needed in his life was a little less routine. He was an adventurer at heart – a turn of phrase Fred found unbelievably corny and endearing at the same time – and he needed to see other aspects of the world, even the nitty-gritty ones, living out in a place where the planet didn't revolve around sealing deals and making money. Where Gene could observe life in the fast lane and make friends his own age who shared his attitude on the galaxy.

The final paragraph informed Fred that Gene would be staying until the end of the week, to finish out the self-defense training, and that he hoped that he and Fred could remain forever friends.

_Forever friends_. Fred supposed Gene thought he was being light-hearted and witty there, too, but Fred saw right through it to what Gene really meant. Gene wanted to get out while the getting was good before Fred reversed the situation and tried to jump him.

To Fred's credit – though the emotions were unwontedly strong, though he longed to let himself fall into denial of the whole situation, though the last paragraph left him wondering how Gene could put so little trust in Fred's control over himself – Fred did not cry. He folded the letter back up and slipped it under his pillow, perhaps allowing himself to trace Gene's sloppy signature at the bottom with a finger once or twice first, and began to prepare himself for the day. He went through the motions of showering, putting on his workout clothes and his bright red headband, and heading down to the facility as though nothing were wrong. Because the more Fred thought about it, nothing was wrong. All good deals came to an end at some point.

"So I guess the last thing I'm going to have to teach you is how to break out of an armhold," said Gene.

Okay, _now_ something was wrong.

For all the morning's turmoil, Fred had to bite down a groan. He was already seeing himself wrapped in Gene's scarred and tattooed arms, the redhead's lips even with the back of his neck, both of them throwing their full strength into it as Fred struggled to get free.

"It's kind of a funny twist to the shoulder, so the attacker won't be expecting it, but it's all about applying the right amount of force to the right places. There is no way for this not to work unless you yourself screw it up."

Wasn't he supposed to be _angry_ at this man? Wasn't Gene currently in the process of breaking his heart?

Gene demonstrated the move on his own, and then came around to encircle Fred. "Just remember that you have to turn out, not in. The goal is to get as far away from the attacker as possible.

How in the hell could he manage to love and hate this man so much at the same time?

Fred executed the move perfectly on the first try, and then hauled off and punched Gene square in the nose.

"Ow! Son of a bitch!" he cried, hand flying to his face to check for blood. There was only a little, but it was enough to get him angry. "I'm not really some kidnapper, you know! Save the moves for the real attackers!"

But Fred wasn't finished. He jumped at Gene, tackling him to the floor and wrenching his arm around to his back. Gene was having none of that, however, and kicked backward and up with his leg, careless of where he connected; it happened to be the back of Fred's knee, and he collapsed as well, flush against Gene's back with his arm going slack enough for Gene to flip them back over and clock Fred in the jaw. They sat panting at each other for a split second.

"I read your note," said Fred.

"Really? I never woulda guessed," Gene spat back.

Fred would never remember how, but he wormed out from under Gene and the tussle continued. It transformed from a fight to a wrestling match, rolling around on the workout mats, Gene's elbow crammed into Fred's gut at one point, Fred's arm painfully encircling Gene's neck the next. After what seemed like forever Fred found himself pinned to the floor at the shoulders, staring up at Gene's flushed skin and broken nose, thick red hair matted and dripping with sweat. And for some reason, Fred decided that in that moment, what he really needed to do was kiss Gene senseless.

It only took a slight movement of the head to fix their lips together, Fred pushing up forcefully, giving Gene no room to escape it. The way Gene had been panting for air had left his mouth open plenty wide enough, and Fred indulged himself with letting his tongue taste the deepest and shallowest nooks of Gene's mouth, from his lips to the back of his tongue. It was so glorious that Fred focused solely on the point where they were connected, refusing to pay any attention to Gene's reaction to the kiss.

That was, until Gene began kissing back.

Startled, Fred's eyes flew open for a split second as Gene's tongue fought back just as hard, as the grip pinning him to the floor became desperate and clutching, just as much passion as anger now. When the comprehension finally sank into Fred's lust-addled brain his eyes closed again and he moaned, deep into Gene's mouth, his previously limp arms reaching up into Gene's hair and tugging fiercely; somehow, there was a silent understanding that they were still fighting, even as Gene's hips began grinding downward and Fred's own body upward to meet them. Through their flimsy gym clothing both erections were obvious, and that was when Fred's brain truly started shutting down, stagnant with disbelief, letting his body take over completely. He pressed himself as close to Gene as he could manage, arousals lining up in glorious friction, mouths still sparring away at one another, as if the very act of kissing had become a contest of who could go the longest without needing to stop to breath. Gene's left arm lifted Fred from the mat for a new angle while his right arm supported his weight. Fred's ankle hooked around Gene's to draw them closer still. The slow acceleration of their thrusts against one another wiped the last splintering threads of Fred's consciousness away, and all he knew was scarred skin and bright red hair.

He lost the battle of tongues because he had to cry out. "Oh god, Gene, Gene, _Gene_…" Gene's victorious mouth merely moved to his neck, his collarbone, back up to the bruise he'd delivered on Fred's jawbone, and then – what fresh hell was this – then around to his _ear_.

"Ahh!" Fred yelped, the attack on this erogenous zone nearly startling him to climax. But no, he had to make this last, it was too spectacular to ever end; his hips pumped harder up into Gene's, the illicit feel of their still-clothed bulges making contact driving further embarrassing sounds from his throat.

Gene's hands were fast at work now, Fred's back flat on the mat again, almost forgetting to breathe when he realized that what Gene was actually doing was _taking both their pants off_. Fred hadn't seen Gene in any state of undress beyond shirtless since that fateful day he'd walked out of the shower and stolen Fred's heart, soul and libido, and this development – which would put Fred in only a shirt and Gene _naked_ – threatened once again to make Fred spend it all too soon. He opened his eyes to watch the process and oh god, there was Gene's cock. There was _Gene Starwind's cock_. And there was his own. And there were both of them, aligned next to each other in the palm of Gene's hand, as Gene settled back in to hover one-armed overtop of him and slip his tongue back between Fred's lips, stroking with both at the same time. Perfectly in synch. Completely victorious.

Fred came.

He screamed Gene's name, screamed unidentifiable words and syllables, sobbed in pleasure to the point of actual tears because it was _just that good_. If he could never have it this good again he would remain forever celibate. He would masturbate to this for the rest of his life. He would eternally have the image of Gene's face as he, too, reached climax, etched into his retinas.

But when Gene stood up, tugged his pants back into place, and turned tail and _ran_, leaving Fred sticky from both of them lying on the weight room floor, Fred actually _did_ cry. He cried much harder than he'd ever suspected to, especially now that he was an adult.

---

_Morbidly, one of my first thoughts was: so when will be the next time I meet Gene Starwind?_


	8. Chapter 8

_After three week of living in the first shitty apartment I found in the slums of Sentinel, I was almost ready to go running back to his goddamn mansion._

A beeping noise was ringing through Gene's dream, emanating from something he was trying to kill, which he thought might have been a robot. He successfully short-circuited whatever it was, but the beeping noise persisted, and that's when it occurred to him that it was his alarm clock.

"Shit!" He shot bolt upright out of his bed – little more than a futon pallet on the floor of his one big room, really – and darted over to the small door to the even tinier shower in the corner for a quick, unfortunately cold scrubdown. The freezing water made him swear again and it wasn't until he was out, clothed, and chugging down a glass of orange juice and a few of those new hangover cure pills that he actually allowed himself to breathe. It was going to be one of those nights.

He buckled his gun-belt on his way out the door and was still throwing his cloak on when he suddenly began to have to run, because he realized the bus was closing its doors and about to pull away. He swore a third time, far more colorfully, but he managed to run fast enough to catch it at a stoplight and exchanged equally nasty glares with the old bus driver as he climbed aboard and sat down in the only available seat, which was fortunately not next to some obnoxious fellow passenger but was actually the single seat all the way in the back. A temporary reprieve.

But for God's sakes, what were this many people doing on the bus so late at night?

Seven stops later and he got off the bus and trudged into his night-shift job. He waved at Ernie, the evening-shift guy, as they passed each other in the hallway, swiping electronic timecards and in general bemoaning their idiocy at working as security guards in the first place. But it had been something Gene knew how to _do_.

It was the _only _thing Gene knew how to do.

For the first few hours nothing happened at the museum, something Gene had come to expect. Nothing ever happened there. All of the stuff there was so _old _that regardless of value he was convinced no one would ever bother to steal it. He didn't even see why his job was necessary – but hey, if it paid for him to live in his shit-ass apartment and get drunk at Clyde's all the time, that was all that really mattered.

Ah, Clyde's. The only good thing Gene had discovered since he'd left from – well, since he'd left, had been the seediest, friendliest dive around, where the bartender was an old softie and the waitress was cute as hell. They got a couple of creeps now and then, but usually Clyde was good at throwing them out before shit went down, and let Gene be as drunk as he wanted to without pitching a fit. It was the one saving grace to his life now – a place where even though no one knew who he was, he still felt like he fit in.

He scratched at his head, which had been itchy for about three days. He would have suspected lice from his nasty apartment if he hadn't already known the cause – his hair was growing. Under the employ of Fred he'd been required to get it cut irritatingly short every time he had to appear in public so as to look "professional." Having left it alone for three weeks or more, it was getting longer than it had been in ages, and his head wasn't used to it. Especially the areas with the old scars. He was lucky the hair still grew there at all, but the itching was driving him crazy.

It was falling into his eyes a little, too, but he absolutely refused to wear a headband.

At roughly three-fifteen in the morning Gene was patrolling the east wing when there was a soft banging back near the central offices. He craned his head in the general direction to listen, hand twitching toward the gun at his waist, but when he heard no further noise he decided to ignore it. He wondered if he didn't hallucinate stuff going on in the museum sometimes at night, out of what was basically cabin fever. He finished his pitiful "rounds" and then began walking back to the security station when he heard another noise, more of a rustling this time, and a low rumble that sounded like a human voice. 

Gene nearly leapt for joy. _Action!_

Gun drawn, the redhead slowly crept foot-over-foot in the direction of the sounds. They were coming from one of the offices near the back, right where the office section turned into the official museum – right where the precious jewels of some queen or other were being kept for a temporary display. A prime target for some punk-ass burglars. Gene heard a rustling of keys and the creak of a door opening and then he saw the guy – short and stocky, with glasses, and not even bothering to dress in all black or anything to help him be sneaky. Gene stole closer and closer and when he felt he was close enough that there was no way this guy was escaping, he yelled out.

"Hey! You!"

Without a sound, the intruder began running away, left shoe squeaking so loud that Gene couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it already. "Get back here!" Gene called again, but the guy was still running, so Gene chased after, around a couple of displays and through two more doorways before he finally just gave up and _shot_. 

"Oi!" cried the other guy, finally letting out a sound. "What's the big idea?"

--

_But me? I wasn't about to admit that life in the real world kind of sucked._

"This is the last straw, Starwind."

Gene pulled a face and tried not to look her in the eye. Matilda Sweeney, his boss, was a tall older woman who appeared to love two things: grey business suits and humiliating men. Gene was no exception to the second love.

"Look, what was I supposed to do? He coulda been stealing something irreplaceable, coulda broken something – "

"He _could_ have. What he _was _doing was sneaking into the curator's office to set up a surprise birthday party! You're lucky the leg you managed to nick was cybernetic prosthetics and not flesh and blood, or _both _our asses would be on the line right now." Matilda pinched the bridge of her nose, bracing herself on her desk with the other hand, and sighed. "Look, you're so ridiculously overqualified for this position that the fact of the matter is, you're the best we've got. I don't want to get rid of you, Starwind."

"I appreciate that, lady."

"I just really wish you'd get over this 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality of yours. It's putting us in a lot of really infuriating positions."

Gene smirked, sensing an opening. "And what exactly does Ms. Sweeney know about infuriating positions?"

Matilda slammed the desk with her other hand. "All right, _that's _it, Starwind, I _am_ firing you!"

"What'd I do?"

"Your _blatant _sexual harassment is the ass of the iceberg that has the rest of your appalling behavior at its tip. I'm sorry, but this is just it. It's just _it_. Gimme your gun and get the hell out of my office."

"Now wait just a second – "

"Get _out_!" 

So, more anxious to catch a pint than a restraining order, Gene got out.

And went to Clyde's.

--

_It was probably a bad idea in the long run – but hey, only hindsight's 20/20._

It was his fourth beer. Or maybe his fifth. He wasn't sure if that one that Clyde had tried to water down really counted. Like he wouldn't notice. He hadn't been trained to detect _poison_ or anything. It wasn't like he could sense textural differences _in his sleep_. For crying out loud.

So it was more like his fourth-and-a-half beer. And he definitely was not drunk. At least not as drunk as he needed to be.

"Can't believe they fired me," he spat, scarfing a handful of pretzels. "Dunno where that bitch gets off sayin' I was sexually harassin' her. I was just makin' a joke, y'know?"

"Gene," said Clyde, warningly. "We've been through this. Several times."

"Still makes me angry, though, don't it? So I'm still gonna complain." He paused and added for good measure, "Damnit."

"Look, I realize this was tough on you, but I might have to cut you off, son."

"Oh, be nice to the guy, Clyde," pleaded Iris from Gene's left. "It's not every day you get fired."

"And this niceness would have nothing to do with the hand on your thigh, now would it," said Clyde softly. Gene and Iris jumped apart like they'd been burned, sent longing looks at each other and then glared at the old man, who merely chuckled at the two of them. 

"Fuckin' spoilsport," Gene growled.

"Just…be nice to him," Iris said again.

Gene polished off the fourth-and-a-half and Iris poured him another before Clyde could even protest. The redhead sent her as sultry a grin as he could manage in his intoxicated state – no, that was wrong, he _wasn't drunk_ – and started sipping on it, anxious for the deeper buzz.

After beer six and a half, Gene stopped talking much. He left the bar for the table in the corner, since a couple of other people had come in and he really just didn't want to talk to them. Why had his life gotten so shitty all of the sudden, he wondered? Iris, though totally delicious, was supposedly saving herself for marriage – and he was damned if he was gonna get hitched when he wasn't even twenty. This was the second job he'd lost since he'd stopped working for – since he'd _left_, damnit, and they'd always told him the same shitty story: You're ridiculously over-qualified, but you're just a pain in my ass. He snorted at this. Didn't they understand that that's just who he _was_? Didn't they understand that underneath it all, he knew _exactly_ what he was doing? His _last _employer hadn't had any problem with that goddamn quote-unquote _sexual harassment_ – 

"Shit," he swore softly to himself. "Just…shit."

Iris brought him another beer.

Underneath it all, he knew _exactly _what he was doing.

Deep inside, he was a damn good guy.

Inside…

Inside, his guts were rumbling something fierce, and he pitched himself toward the bathroom as fast as he could run but he couldn't outrun the bile. He didn't quite make it to the toilet and ended up retching into the sink. 

"Fuck," he hissed, when it was finally done coming up and he managed to grab a paper towel from the dispenser mounted on the wall and clean off his face. He turned on the taps and managed to wash most of it down, but there was still a thin layer of vomit in the bottom of the basin when all of the sudden it just stopped draining. The sink began to fill up with the puke/water mixture and Gene groaned. Today. Today of all _fucking _days. 

He stumbled out of the bathroom and over toward Clyde, knocking past one of the other patrons in the process. The guy gave Gene an irritated sneer and it was all he could do not to tell the guy to fuck off.

"S—sorry," he said to Clyde. "'Bout your sink."

"What the hell did you do now, Gene?" the bartender said with a sigh. He walked over to the bathroom and was accosted with the smell before he even got close enough to look. After that, he didn't need to.

"Iris!" he hollered, and the blonde perked up. "Is it too early to call Hawking?"

"Oh gosh, I don't think so!" she called from the other side of the establishment. "He doesn't sleep much, he's usually up around six or so. Go ahead and give him a call."

"Hawking?" wondered Gene, but as Clyde picked up the vid-phone and dialed the number of whoever this guy was, the surface of his table was looking pretty comfy, and he slumped over and passed out.

When he awoke, it was actually pretty light outside, and there was some tinkering coming from the bathroom that was periodically interspersed with soft, politically correct expletives. Gene wasn't quite hung over – he imagined he had only been asleep for about an hour, so he was probably even still drunk – but the bar was empty again, save for Clyde and Iris and whoever was fixing the sink.

He _did _have to pee, however, so he staggered his way into the bathroom, past the blond kid on the floor, and over to the stall with the urinal. He was zipping up his pants before he realized what was going on, and left the stall to wash his hands in the undamaged sink.

"Who're you?" he managed.

"Jim Hawking," said the blond kid, with a slight wave from a hand with a wrench in it. "Clyde called me in to fix the sink." He rocked up onto his knees and Gene got a good look at his face, albeit a bit blurry. "I take it you're the one that emptied your stomach into it."

Gene may have been drunk – yeah, after that puking escapade there was no denying it – but he still managed to put two and two together. "_Jim _Hawking, you say?"

"Yeah, short for James."

"And what's your middle name?"

"Uh, Ian. Why?"

"_You're_ that goddamn JIH kid that always had the better score than me at that arcade game!" Gene cried out, triumphant.

Jim looked a bit confused for a second, and then realized what Gene was talking about. "You're GMS!"

"How the hell did you always do so well?"

"Well, I _am_ a genius, after all," said Jim with no air of humility whatsoever.

"Hey!" called Clyde from the bar. "Less talking, more fixing my sink!"

"Yes sir," Jim called back, a bit embarrassed, and he crouched back under the basin and kept tinkering away. Gene smiled at him and shook his head, and was just leaving the bathroom when a sound so loud that it _totally _messed with his head emanated from near the door.

When he realized it was Iris _screaming_, he actually managed to sober up a little.

"Ohmigod, somebody, help!" Gene burst out of the bathroom door – he stumbled a little, but managed to steady himself on a potted plant – and came face-to-face with the sight of a skeezy pony-tailed guy with Iris trapped in a headlock and a gun flicking back and forth between the blond and Clyde.

"The girly's mine!" he insisted, blue eyes rolling wildly. "Don't try anything funny, Pops, or I'll blast your brains out! Just gimme the girl and the cash from the register."

"Don't do anything irrational," Clyde started to say, but the guy fired a warning shot into a bottle behind the bar and upon the sound of the shattering glass, Iris screamed again. 

Gene noticed she didn't call out for him, which he thought was strange – but then it occurred to him that maybe, because of the potted plant in the way, neither Iris nor her attacker could see him yet. That was definitely an advantage.

Or at least it was until a voice piped up behind him, "Oh my god, that's Larry Zwei! He's got a huge bounty around here! He's wanted on six accounts of kidnapping young blond women!"

Gene turned around to face the bigmouthed kid, ready to tell him off for revealing their hiding place – and then suddenly, a word clicked in his alcohol-beclouded brain.

_Bounty_.

Well, Gene could definitely work with that.

From the wall, he grabbed one of the pool cues – the table itself had long given out, but Clyde kept the cues and the balls around for decoration and "atmosphere" – and tested its weight in his hand. Perfect. Darting out from behind the plant, he ran straight at Larry and Iris, keeping careful watch on the guy's gun. Right as he was about to shoot, Gene dove to the floor, sliding over to Larry's feet. The shot missed and cracked open the 9 ball, which shattered into chunks that had Jim covering his eyes; Iris picked up her feet, counting on the guy's headlock to keep her in the air long enough; and Gene, flat on his stomach, ended up at the perfect angle to swing up with the pool cue and nail Larry Zwei right in the nuts.

"Son of a – " he cried out, dropping Iris, who skidadddled to relative safety behind the bar with Clyde. Gene grabbed the cue again and this time stabbed it straight upward, catching Larry underneath the jaw with the force of a punch. That was enough to make him drop his _gun_, and at that point Gene grabbed it, stood up, and clocked him over his ponytailed head with it.

He dropped like a sack of bricks, and Gene slumped back to the floor, too, almost about to pass out again. He could faintly hear voices talking – talking about _him_ – in the background.

"He did all that as drunk as he is?" Jim marveled.

"Gene's amazing!" said Iris, and Gene could hear the smile in her voice.

"I never even knew he could do all that," said Clyde in soft awe. "With that kind of skill, he'd make a damn good bounty hunter."

"He'd make a damn good _partner_!" cried Jim. "He may look dumb, but I bet between the two of us, we could do anything."

--

_And a month later, we pretty much could_.

(**A/N:** I would just like to thank my awesome reviewer Oro for motivating me to get off my butt and update this fic! I'm on spring break now, so I've got some free time in which I can actually do stuff like this. This chapter I guess technically takes us up to the beginning of Outlaw Star, or at least nothing of real note happens between now and then. I think next chapter I'll end up doing some trippy summary of the series from Fred's POV, or something, and then we'll get back on track with the action!) 


	9. Chapter 9

_I don't know how long it's supposed to take to get to the point where you can pretend something never happened, but apparently seven months is plenty of time._

The first time he came back, everything was low-key.

"A Mr. Starwind to see you, master," said his replacement, as though they hadn't worked together for two years.

"I need a bit of a favor," said Gene, as if they were old friends and nothing more.

"And what _exactly _can I do for you, hmm?" said Fred, as if the teasing were just an innocent joke.

Gene had introduced his partner, a precocious little boy by the name of James Hawking, whom Fred admired and respected almost instantly for his intelligence and his boyish charm. He could tell that he and Gene got along quite well because of the way they argued. He'd told Fred about their business that they were trying to start up, Starwind and Hawking Enterprises, and Fred had made some sly comment about how of _course_ Gene's name had to come first. He flirted shamelessly with both of them, because it made both of them uncomfortable and Fred was just a little cruel like that. It was the least he could do to repay them when they were asking to borrow such a ridiculous sum of money.

It was always money. Never Fred's withering good looks, never his posh but casual charm, never the mere pleasure of his company and conversation. Every time Gene and Jim came willingly to a Luo facility, it was always money.

It wouldn't be worth the illusion of ignorance for anything else, would it?

So after a while Fred started getting them back. He'd call in "favors" in exchange for all his loans, often resorting to blackmail (though he never referred to it as such – how tacky). He needed a bodyguard. He needed technical maintenance on one of his numerous automated security systems – that one was for Jim. He needed a liaison to a more…_uncouth _venue than it was fit to see a member of the prestigious, dramatic Luo family appearing at – all planetside, of course, because Gene Starwind, a man who could outshoot A-class bounties, lift almost twice his weight in heavy machinery, and drink half of Sentinel under the table, still wouldn't go into space.

Except one day, he _did_.

"What are you doing with a _spaceship_, anyway?" Fred had demanded. After all these years.

"I'm…not too sure, exactly," Gene said, devil-may-care grin adorning his atrociously good-looking face. "But the long and short of it is, we ended up with this thing, and I'll be damned if I give it over to the people she was trying to keep it from."

_She_. Gene's heart obviously panged to mention it. To his own eternal embarrassment, Fred's heart panged to hear it.

"I just… I know this is something _big_, you know?" Gene had continued, his hands fidgeting with excitement in the air in front of him. "I just can't help but feel like this is _exactly _the adventure I was looking for when I – "

His mouth had closed abruptly, then, and he'd winced. Fred hadn't missed the meaning, though. He knew exactly what Gene was referring to. _That_ adventure. The adventure that had taken Gene Starwind away from him, some seven or eight months ago. The adventure that had started with this mystical _she _that Gene spoke so reverently of, and one that would probably take him all over the galaxy, to places he'd never expected to see and in situations he'd never expected to experience. The exact adventure that Gene Starwind's life as a spoiled guard dog – his life with _Fred_ – had never brought him.

There wasn't too much Fred could have said to that, beyond what he managed to get out.

"Don't you _dare _go getting yourself killed, Gene, do you hear me?"

Gene managed a smile, scars on his cheek crinkling, blue-black eyes twinkling out the same color as the studs adorning his ears (_when had he gotten those? _wondered Fred).

"Nah, I couldn't do that. You couldn't afford it."

--

_I don't think either one of us had realized it at the time, but this "adventure" of Gene's really was going to be the most important, insane chapter of his young life_.

The requests from both ends got more and more ridiculous.

He needed a backer in the Heiphong Space Race – the _Space Race_, of all things. He needed information about the Kei Pirates (and cash). He'd needed some repairs to his ship – that bright red, obnoxious thing he called the _Outlaw Star_ (and also, cash). Meanwhile, Fred just kept needing Gene to save him from _crazy women_. Twilight Suzuka, who was out for his head on a paid hit, ended up _friends_ with Gene, of all things. Reiko, the poor dear, not so much.

And every now and then, Gene would let slip a hint or two about what exactly he was doing out there. The Galactic Leyline, something Fred had only heard of in myths and outlandish dinner party stories of C'tarl-C'tarls. Those treacherous McDougal brothers, who were good Luo customers and bad…everything else. Gwen Khan, a slightly demented old scientist that Fred had only had the (dis)pleasure of meeting once or twice. Breaking in and out of jail. Planet Tenrei.

To Fred they were all serious factors, but unconnected. To Gene, somehow, they all ended up as part of an enormous picture – an overarching mission that he'd undertaken.

_Help Melfina_.

For what it was worth, the idea made Fred alternately want to cry or vomit.

He'd met the girl once or twice. She seemed nice enough, though hardly Gene's type, and definitely not good enough for him. Nine times out of ten, Fred merely pretended she didn't exist, but when Gene said her name, or even just shortened it to _Mel_, the tone his voice took on just made Fred sick to his stomach.

Then came a point where Fred didn't hear from Gene for an unusually long stretch of time, and that's when he started to panic.

"Any news from him?" Fred asked of Ralph, his stoic, shades-sporting bodyguard. By then, he didn't even have to specify which "him" he meant.

"Not today, master," was Ralph's answer every time. And so Fred went about business transactions like nothing was wrong. But it was getting harder and harder to pretend. What had come so easily to him before, when Gene was at least accounted for if not always safe and well, was getting harder and harder to do when he didn't know if he'd ever see him again.

Fred couldn't just pretend that he wasn't in love with Gene Starwind.

One day it hit him, and he paged out to his guards in the hallway. "Ralph? Stanley?"

"Yes, master?"

"Cancel – cancel my lunch meeting. Or at least postpone it. I'm – I'm not feeling very well."

He shut the intercom off without even bothering to wait for a response, and Fred started to cry.

Of all the damned people for him to fall in love with, it had to be Gene. It couldn't have been Alicia Tseng, who was now an award-winning supermodel despite how ridiculous she'd looked – glasses and braces _both_, poor thing – in middle school. It couldn't have been Reiko, who'd been overzealously after his heart for years and years, despite the numerous dates he'd stood her up for and his repeated declarations, in private, that he was a homosexual. It couldn't have been any other lousy, bored rich kid lingering around Red Rush station that weekend, someone safe and predictable and socially acceptable and business-savvy. It had to be this goddamn daredevil beast of a bounty hunter, who was in love with that goddamn airhead of a bio-android, and who was probably off at the complete other end of the galaxy getting himself killed.

Well, Fred jeered to himself, he'd always been a sucker for a redhead.

He was just clearing up his tears and making sure he hadn't drenched any of the important documents on his desk when Ralph paged back into him.

"Master?"

"What is it now, Ralph? I don't really want to be disturbed at the moment – "

"Ah geez, you gotta let me in, Fred!" came one of the last voices he'd been expecting from the intercom's other end.

"J...James?" Immediately, Fred let the boy in, and he came bolting down the carpet toward Fred's desk, shaggy blond hair a bit longer than he remembered it flying every which way in his aggravation.

"I don't mean to be impolite about this, but I need to borrow some money, and quick!"

Fred rolled his eyes, hoping the gesture would distract Jim from how red and puffy they probably were. "As usual, of course. Whatever for?"

"I need to bail Gene outta jail!"

--

_If getting arrested was the biggest of his problems at the moment, I could have handed over as much wong as James needed_.

They both drove cars down to the station, Jim insisting that Fred make as big a deal of himself as possible – just in case, y'know? Fred didn't have the energy to argue. They took the second most flashy of his vehicles, with Ralph in the driver's seat and Fred in the passenger seat, and Jim flew on just ahead in the rustbucket that he shared with Gene. The contrast was a bit startling; it did make Fred look terribly important. Well, he _was _terribly important, wasn't he? And he was bailing his terribly important, terribly financially impaired friend out of jail. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except for the fact that Fred hadn't seen Gene in months, and the fact that waiting down at the station, wringing her hands on the front steps, was a slim, shaggy-haired girl in a glossy violet-red coat.

Melfina.

Fred gave Jim a scathing look, even though he knew there was nothing the young blond could have done about it. It just made him feel better.

Inside, things proceeded incredibly smoothly. Fred's mere presence left underpaid, undereducated officers quaking in their regulation-issue boots, and when he offered to pay one and a half times as much as they were asking for the bail for the issue to be lifted from Gene's record, they were more than happy to comply with his requests. Gene emerged from the holding cell moments later, scratching at the back of his poorly-cut hair. Fred had to stifle a laugh when he saw the new "style," and Gene gave him a bit of a glower.

Fred had missed that glower.

Flirting a little with the least attractive of the cops, Fred whisked Jim, Gene and Melfina out of the station as rapidly as was inconspicuous and then followed behind himself, meeting up with them on the front steps. Instantly, his flamboyant demeanor vanished again.

"Well, I suppose if you don't need any more of my money, you'll have no further use of me, and I'll be seeing you again in another few months or so when your wallets dry up…" Fred trailed off bitterly, heading toward his car.

"Ah, Fred, c'mon – " Jim started, but Gene motioned to silence him, following Fred instead.

"Hey, wait up, Fred," he said.

"Oh, you need _more_ of my money? Because frankly, Gene Starwind – "

"Look, can I ride back with you?"

Fred blinked at him, not having expected this turn of events. "Ride back…with me?"

"I…I'd love a chance to explain."

They climbed into the back seat of the car together, and Gene _explained_. He had to stop and backtrack six or seven times, leaving out key details at the most inconvenient times. He talked about Hilda and the Kei Pirates. He talked about Gwen Khan and the McDougal brothers. He talked about the Galactic Leyline, the C'tarl-C'tarl Empire, and, most terrifyingly, the Anten Seven.

He talked a lot about Melfina.

The car ended up driving around and around the city, stalling for time, letting Gene finish his haphazardly constructed story. When all was said and done Fred was completely speechless, most of his thoughts just impressed shock that Gene was still alive to tell him all of these things. There was so much he wanted to ask about – he was having a hard time piecing together the whole story with the times in between that they'd seen each other, making the timelines align properly – but in the end, the question he wanted to ask most, but wanted to actually _say _the least, was the only one that popped out.

"So you and this bioandroid girl, huh."

"Fred, don't be like that," Gene said automatically.

"It's hard _not _to be like that," Fred said, softly, full of resignation. "You know that."

"I know that," Gene echoed, breaking their eye contact.

"And you say you're going back into space with her?"

"It's…it's her home, Fred," Gene said. "I don't know if that seems right, for the very _lack_ of a home world to actually _be _your home, but I just know somehow that it's where she belongs. And I'm starting to think that it's where I belong, too."

"Funny how that worked out," said Fred.

"Look, Fred…" Gene trailed off, searching for words. He'd been speaking an awful lot and his mouth was running a little dry. "I want you to know that none of this is personal. Frankly, I don't believe too hard in that 'one true love' kind of bullshit. Maybe it works okay in the movies, or in those trashy novels that I catch Suzuka reading when she doesn't think anyone is looking, but real life is too freakin' short to confine all of that emotion and shit to one person."

"Don't say this, Gene. Don't try to make it better."

"I'm just telling the fucking truth!" Gene shouted suddenly, and if they hadn't been in a car he would have jumped to his feet. "There have been exactly three people I have fallen in love with in my life, and damnit, Fred, one of them is _you_!"

"Then why did you pick _that one?_"

The car fell silent again, and turned around a street corner it had already turned around five times. Gene breathed heavily and tried to recompose himself. Fred stewed, staring out the window.

"We're not in the same place, you and me, okay, Fred?" he said finally. "You've got this world of yours, with the money, and – and the stocks, and companies, and shit, and that's not my world. I tried to make it my world, for a long time, but it ain't. My – my _love_, it ain't a _business_. It's an _adventure_. It's space. It's the place that's got Melfina. Don't even tell me you can't understand _that_."

It struck Fred that this was pretty much the most profound thing Gene had ever said to him, or probably to anyone. As the buildings of Sentinel flashed by outside, the thriving metropolis on the not-so-thriving world, he pondered over each and every word of the speech, trying to find a flaw – a flaw like there often was to be found in Gene's logic. But he knew in his heart that this time, he wouldn't find it.

Slowly, with all the strength he could muster, Fred turned back to Gene, and looked him in his wide, tense eyes.

"For someone who's so anti-_business_," he murmured, "you sure do have a lot of _work stress _built up on that handsome face of yours."

Gene smiled a bit and relaxed ever-so-slightly at the hint of tease that was creeping back into Fred's voice. "Now that's the Fred Luo I remember."

Fred bit his lip slightly, tugged on his ear for good luck, and leaned in closer. "Do you remember _this_?"

And he kissed Gene, hard, wiping the rest of the stress away. The car turned back around that same corner again, but this time neither passenger saw the city go streaking by. They were too focused on each other, preserving this last moment before Gene went back to being an adventurer, and Fred went back to waiting months and months between glorified sugar-daddy calls but being okay with it.

They broke apart eventually with a soft sound, and Fred stared fiercely into Gene's eyes just inches from his own. "Don't you go getting yourself killed out there, Mister Adventurer."

"I couldn't do that to you," Gene teased. "It'd be bad for your business."

Fred laughed, sadly, but with a thin under-strain of resolution.

"Bad for my love."

--

_The first time I met Gene Starwind, I had just turned thirteen the day before. I was young, I was desperate for companionship, and I didn't quite know what to think of him._

_I still don't._

(**AN: **Sorry this took a thousand years. That said, here you go: You'll never have to wait for an update on this again. This fic has been going on for a long time now, and finally, I got it to the end. Do they ever make it back together? You decide. Me, I'm always optimistic. I just don't really know what that means here.

Thanks for reading, everyone.)


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